


Cara Mio, Caro Cuore

by SinclairMaxwell



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Portal (Video Game)
Genre: Android/HumanHybrid!Harry, Cybernetics, Dumbledore Bashing, Free!Sirius, Godfather Sirius Black, Hermione Granger is a Good Friend, Luna Lovegood might be a legit moon princess, Maternal GLADOS, NaNoWriMo, NaNoWriMo 2017, NaNoWriMo 2018, Portal 2 Spoilers, Rape/Non-con Elements, Robot/Human Relationships, Sirius Black Bashing, Wheatley Loving, non-con in later chapters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-02
Updated: 2018-11-12
Packaged: 2019-01-28 14:49:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 29
Words: 73,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12609028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SinclairMaxwell/pseuds/SinclairMaxwell
Summary: In the depths of Aperture Science's Enrichment Center, GLaDOS has devised a way to ensure that no one will be able to corrupt her emotion cores again. By creating a single emotion core that would contain all of those human emotions that the personality spheres embodied.A single human core, melded into her own mainframe and matrices. An independent and yet wholly inseparable part of her. Aperture's greatest experiment to date. Well, except for her, of course.She would need a framework for that core, though. Materials.Where better to start than with the green-eyed infant delivered straight to her door?





	1. Mia Bambina, Oh C.H.E.LL...

A/N: NaNoWriMo times, ladies and gents! Pencil’s UP and incendiary lemons at the ready! IT’S PORTAL TIME!

 

Disclaimer: I do not own Portal or Harry Potter. Their respective licenses are owned by Valve and J.K. Rowling.  **_The various and sundry Personality Cores are ideas by Youtuber Harry101UK_ ** . Go watch his stuff because it’s seriously amazing. The crazies, though, those are all mine. xD

 

**Chapter** **00110001**

 

_                                                                            Mia Bambina, Oh C.H.E.LL... _

 

                      A platform about the size of a twin bed waited for me ahead, surrounded by a pool of deadly toxins.

 

I grinned like a loon, bouncing from one leg to the other, my longfall boots giving me a delightful lift on each step. Oh, it was Christmas! I loved these tests! 

 

“Music Core, give me a beat!” Nothing made a testing chamber more fun than good music to inspire you!

 

The orange-eyed sphere gave a short nod and, from out of his orb body’s speakers came a upbeat tempo that I could feel to my core. Ohhhh, yes! My adrenaline was pumping and my focus was on that platform so intensely that the rest of the facility could have been falling down around us and i wouldn’t have even noticed. I was ready! Impatiently, my hand flew out towards the second core floating at my side. Come on, Glitchey!

 

“Aaaaannnndddd BEGIN!” The British android ordered at last, starting the large timer up above. He truly had found his calling at last.

 

                           My feet were bolting across the floor faster than he could even finish his words, feet pounding against metal like a racing heartbeat. Inside my mind, half a dozen codes were flashing, ignored.

 

_ Oxygen levels increased. Adrenal output reaching max levels. Accelerated heart rate.  _

 

With a “whoop!” of glee and a leap into the great beyond, I was flying over the massive pool of death below. In another instant, my feet found the platform, sending me flying up, up, up to an exit three stories above. 

 

I loved testing the aerial faith plates!

 

GLaDOS hummed, pleased, in the back of my brain.

 

**_://01100011 01101000 01100101 01101100 01101100//:_ **

 

                             “Sooo, what did you do to yourself again?” Virgil queried as the Maintenance Core thoughtfully looked over my slightly sparking elbow. My arm below the shoulder joint was separated and lying on a table, the skin peeled back to reveal the delicate robotic workings beneath. 

 

The arm had been an unfortunate result of a failed test when I was eight and the real danger a spike plate presented. 

 

In my mind, my other half rolled her digital eye.

 

“Having a bit too much fun with the faith plate and made a bad landing.” I admitted sheepishly, shrugging my shoulders. The gesture made me feel somewhat tilted without the familiar weight of my left arm. 

 

                             The chassis-less defective turret that I had affectionately and laughingly named Dangerless Dan, snorted from his sentry nearby. He had taken to being Virgil’s constant companion in the Repair Wing as of late. Fact Core and I were hoping that the repair bot’s pleasant personality would eventually rub off on the defective turret. Oracle Turret had simply said, “ As a creature of free will, do not be tempted into futility.”

 

“Too much fun, he says. With a faith plate, he says. Oh boy.” The disbelief and incredulity was thick in his voice. He earned only a wry grin in response. What could I say? I was a bit of an adrenaline junkie. Okay, maybe more than a bit.

 

                             Virgil at last gave a nod of his rounded body after a time and a short ‘haha!’ of success. The sparks had long since stopped emitting from the joint, thankfully, and it now looked as good as ever. 

 

“All right, you are all set to go!” 

 

I grabbed my newly repaired limb and twisted it back into it’s mechanized socket. Yes! It felt good. I gave the orange-eyed sphere a bright smile and hopped off of the cabinet where I had been perched. 

 

“Thank you, Virgil! It’s as good as new. Brilliant work as always!” 

 

“Ay, no problem. Just remember that your implanted ventilator will need servicing in the next sixty-seven days.”

 

I gave him a wave of recognition as I exited the door and headed towards the Main A.I. Chamber. Across my mental matrices, a beloved voice was humming a familiar Italian tune.

 

                                  The Main A.I. Chamber was as natural a place for me as it was an intimate one. Cores and turrets never ventured here unless called directly. The usual clamor of assembly lines, the clank of robotic limbs across floor and testing chambers never reached here. It was our space, a place for the singular ‘we’. And singular we were. My brain was just as much a part of hers as it was my own and vice versa, connected through neural networks and cyberspace and Aperture’s wildest fantasies come to life. She knew I was coming before her CCTV modules ever saw me.

 

GLaDOS knew, because I knew. 

 

In this place, in this facility, we were but one being in two bodies.

 

“That was a clumsy fall. You looked like a flopping fish being tossed to the ground.” She intoned without any sting when I crossed the massive room's threshold. Her words would have held more bite to them if she weren't in that instant scanning my biometric readings for signs of pain or instability in the limb.

 

To make sure I was okay. 

 

Even as the thought ran across our shared mental framework, she didn't deny it. GLaDOS was the world's most advanced artificial intelligence, after all. Denial was beneath her. 

                                She hung from three massive circular cores in the ceiling, the coils being the bulk of the supercomputer that made her up. GLaDOS was magnificent in her construction. Her innerworkings shielded by the white armor of her chassis, the A.I.’s single yellow eye tracked my progress into our space. 

 

“How is the beta testing for the gravity gun going?” 

 

“See for yourself.” Well someone was a little grumpy this evening.

 

                              A secondary chassis folded down from the ceiling on it’s own management rail that circled the room. It formed into a large seat made for a more human-shaped connection rather than her own fully robotic body. Sliding into my chassis always felt like coming home. It should, I supposed. It had been made specifically for me, after all. My body sank into the comforting supports. The cables hanging from the top of the framework connecting me directly to the mainframe began sliding almost hungrily into the ports in the back of my neck and at six other connection points along my spine. Vaguely, I remember that connecting this way had hurt once. There  had been pain once, when I was new to the connection. Back when I was very small. I had been interconnected with GLaDOS for all my life but there had been a time when wiring in directly had been foreign and new. 

                            Quickly, I accessed the files and video feeds of the gravity gun project and winced. No wonder she was in a foul temper. How did a person get pulled apart without their skin ever breaking anyways? With barely a thought, I dismissed the files in distaste and dove into the command center to issue orders to Atlas and P-Body to redo the test but this time with androids instead of human test subjects. Just one more project delegated to the Cooperative Testing Initiative. Humans were just so...soft and squishy. They were fragile. A small sliver of discomfort rose up in my chest at the slight tickle that was the reminder of my animatronic arm. I was still fragile too. Well, at least parts of me were. Within the confines of cyberspace, the A.I. that had raised me from infancy brushed up against my mind comfortingly upon sensing the disquiet. 

                           I knew that GLaDOS had a failsafe set up in case I had a ‘catastrophic failure’. The specifics I didn’t know. We were able to keep some things buried and secreted away from one another if we really worked at it, or rather, if I worked at it. GLaDOS had decades to learn how to keep things hidden after all. I imagined that it was something like her blackbox quick save feature though how it would work for me was beyond my understanding. 

                          I was rewatching and going over the days tests with the A.I. when the edges of my awareness slowly began to feel heavy and tired. My body was letting me know that it had reached the limits of it’s energy stores. A check of my internal biometrics confirmed that it had been precisely forty-eight hours and twenty-three minutes since I had last entered sleep mode. 

 

‘ _ GLaDOS? Will you sing to me? _ ’

 

The string of code filtered across between us and a sense of affection echoed across from the only mother I had ever known.

 

‘ **_Very well._ ** ’

 

I settled back further into my chassis, listening to the soft words filtering into the last vestiges of my awareness. Quiet and tender as a breeze and loving as a mother’s embrace. The last thing I heard before sleep mode shut me off to all awareness was her whispered farewell. 

 

‘ **_Goodnight, C.H.E.L.L._ ** ’

  
  


A/N: Soooooo, what did you think? I know, I know, I haven’t finished my Black Butler/HP sequel yet but this grabbed hold of me a few months ago and just wouldn’t let go! I’m a big fan of Portal and how could I resist throwing Harry Potter into the mix?! The answer is simple. I could not. 


	2. Wake Up Call

A/N: Hey Hey! Back to thinking about portals and our favorite little wizard/test subject is about to have his carefully crafted world interrupted by a surprise guest! Enjoy and as always please favorite and follow and comment! I love to hear from all of you! :)

 

Disclaimer: I own nothing. Portal is property of Valve, HP belongs to J.K.R. and the ideas for the varied personality cores come Youtuber Harry101UK’s videos Meet The Cores, a fanmade Portal tribute.

 

_ C.H.E.L.L. Internal Dialogue _

**_GLaDOS Dialogue_ **

Wheatley Dialogue

  
  


**Chapter** **00110010**

 

_ Wake Up Call _

  
  


          There was a man at the door.

 

_ A new test subject? _

 

**_No. A stranger._ **

 

A tall black pillar of a man, severe and pinched, with a nose like a hawk and an expression of utmost distaste. He was there at the disguised door of the facility, staring with veiled curiosity at what appeared to be an old shed in the middle of nowhere. He was pale with the skin tone of someone who spent most of his time indoors and wore a worn black duster over a newer, matching button down and slacks.

 

_ Should we let him in? _

 

Lines of code fell silent for a long, thoughtful pause before the command passed over the mainframe for the shaking elevator to climb to the surface. Such a long way to the surface…

I watched him enter the door via CCTV cautiously, confused, and jerk around startled when the door shut behind him and the elevator began the controlled descent into the bowels of the Aperture Sciences Enrichment Center. The empty, stark white lobby that met him must have been startling for him, I imagine. What must it be like to go into what looked like a crumbling, dilapidated shed and find yourself in a place like this? Our gaze followed him as he tentatively walked into the lobby proper, an odd stick in one hand and a heavy envelope in the other. 

 

“Hello?” He called out with a demanding tone that said he was use to being obeyed and obeyed in a timely fashion. 

 

We did not disappoint his expectations.

 

          “ **_Welcome to the Aperture Sciences Computer Aided Enrichment Center. Please state your name and reason for your visiting for identification and processing purposes_ ** _. _ ”

 

The stranger visibly stiffened when the words ‘science’ and ‘center’ issued out from the speakers above him. Interesting. Nonetheless, the man consented and relented, even as his eyes were casting around the room for any sort of associate or human being almost nervously. 

 

“My name is Severus Snape and I am here on behalf of Hogwarts School with an invitation to attend for a Mr. Harry Potter.” 

 

Harry Potter? 

 

          Automatically, my systems began trying to follow cross referencing protocols and discover the identity of this so called Harry Potter. There was and never had been anyone in Aperture’s employee manifest by that name save for a lone sixty-three year old bachelor with no children and he had been dead for a decade already. The testing subject dossier held similar results. For the love of Cave Johnson, not even a quick internet search turned up anything on a Harry Potter save for a single birth certificate hailing back from merry old England. The man did carry an English accent. Why would a U.K. citizen be tracking a child all the way to the U.S. in order to hand deliver a school invitation? It all sounded extremely suspicious and I had worked for Aperture my entire life. I was well acquainted with suspicious things.

 

“ **_My records hold no one by the name of Harry Potter here_ ** _. _ ” 

 

          Without missing a beat, the man easily shot back.

 

“I am not mistaken. He may be called a different name now then but I have spent the last six months tracing him back to this...facility. He would be about fourteen, black hair, bright green eyes.” 

 

GLaDOS’s code jumped in surprise and it was, to someone accustomed to a brain that often ran on time spans of nanoseconds, what seemed like an eternity before she responded back to the man's brusque statement. In that time, I had taken the chance to check back in with Atlas and P-Body on the gravity gun beta testing. 

 

Sigh. Better call Virgil and send the gun back to the drawing board. Our compatriots needed some reassembling.

 

“ **_Please proceed through the door to the left of the check in desk. An Aperture Assistance Core will arrive to greet you shortly to escort you to your destination. Please disregard any Material Emancipation Fields you may encounter along the way and if you are carrying any explosive devices or radioactive materials, please let your designated Aperture Assistance Core know prior to approaching the aforementioned Material Emancipation Field. Thank you._ ** **”**

 

          With a healthy amount of wariness at her instructions and a, more than likely, lack of knowledge of what exactly an emancipation field was, Snape crept through the door with skepticism. 

 

‘ _ Wheatley? You assigned him  _ _ Wheatley _ _? _ ’

 

She brushed off my incredulity with a scoff.

 

‘ **_He was looking for you. Don't you understand? What I want to know is how he traced you here._ ** **’**

 

Me? 

 

I rewound the conversation in my mind quickly.

 

Fourteen years of age. Black hair, bright green eyes. 

 

          That did sound like me. Harry Potter, hm? Was that what my birth name had been? GLaDOS had procured me through the Aperture Science Volunteer Procurement Center as an infant. According to records, an unidentified obese man had entered the center carrying me and sat in the intake room to wait to be assisted. After a few moments, he got up and walked out, leaving behind an equally unidentified me in a plastic chair. Efforts to track down the man or my identity were unsuccessful so I became a ward and eventual project of Aperture Sciences and its resident A.I.

 

           But this man knew my birth name and GLaDOS had a very valid point. He had said he had “spent the last six months tracing him back to this...facility”. How exactly had he traced me? Did he know the man who had left me in Aperture’s custody?

 

‘ **_I see that your brain hasn't degraded during your quality time with the cores.’_ ** Indeed _. ‘ _ **_I don’t trust him. Let's have him run some tests while we find out what it is he_ ** **_really_ ** **_wants with you_ ** .’

 

          Ohhh, testing. Not a bad idea. We  _ were _ beginning to run short of subjects in the deep freeze. Fortunately, since I had demoted Wheatley to Assistance Core instead of Relaxation Pod manager and placed a more capable core in charge of the humans, we had managed to salvage the bulk of them before permanent brain damage set in. No sense in wasting this opportunity, however maybe the way to go with this subject was a bit of the old good-core, bad-core routine. We didn't just want testing from Severus Snape after all. 

 

We wanted information.

 

‘ _ I have an idea. _ ’

 

**_://01100011 01101000 01100101 01101100 01101100//:_ **

 

Severus Snape hadn’t wanted to participate in the testing chambers. He was curiously furious when the Material Emancipation Grill disintegrated a peculiar amulet and a few vials of strange fluid on his belt. GLaDOS had made his participation plain, however, with a carefully placed line of sentry turrets whether that participation was willing or otherwise. The man had shed his heavy duster after it had nearly cost him a trip into a pool of deadly toxins. For a man of his age and obvious scholarly orientation, he could certainly move when circumstances called for it. Watching him gasp for breath while in the pause between tests was...strangely fascinating.

 

I had been just a child the last time I had seen another human being. I had forgotten that other people did things like sweat and pant. They wore layers of fabrics on their bodies instead of a white and black bodysuit or the orange jumpsuits of the test subjects. The last human I had seen had been a strange man who had been living in the air vents and walls of old Aperture. Doug had been his name and we had spoken only a handful of times before GLaDOS had found him and...terminated his employment. She had discovered him because I had discovered him. I was six years old. 

 

Eight years. Eight years my life had been nothing but androids and artificial intelligences. 

 

          Severus Snape was the first living, breathing human I had seen in all of those years and he had been searching for me. It gave me all the more reason to wheedle the information I wanted out of him. 

 

“ Hello, luv.  You’re watching that bloke awfully hard. Should I be worried?”

 

I snorted and couldn’t help the affectionate glow that spread throughout my body at the chuckling British voice that sounded out from behind me. Before I knew it, a warm round body nudged into my back. Wheatley’s blue eye lit my awareness, drawing my focus out of the CCTV cameras coloring the expanse of my mental computer screens and back to the outside world. Incidentally, my outside world view was filled with him. 

 

“Hardly. I just realized how little I actually know about humans. How strange they are.” The core nuzzled my face, and drawing another smile out of the thoughtful pensiveness that I had fallen into. GLaDOS gave a curling twist of disdain at the core that had somehow claimed my heart over the last few years, “Wheatley, are you on another one of your ‘breaks’ again?” 

 

My arms drew the floating core into my lap for a snuggle and planted a gentle kiss on the top of his frame. His body let off a happy hum, sinking down further into my embrace. I would never regret finding the old, disused Hover Turret plans and utilizing the tech to improve the cores. Having a relationship with one half forever stuck to a management rail would have been unfortunate and uncomfortable. 

 

“ Weeeelllll, maybe just a little one. Not like anyone’s going to be visiting to need assistance anyways. Erm, your stalker-man there aside, of course. Bit of a prig, that one. ”

 

           Safely ensconced in a catwalk above, we observed the turret production line below in silence for a long moment, simply basking in one another's company. I wondered what Severus Snape would say if he knew that I was in love with a robot. It wasn't normal for humans, I'm sure. They engaged in mating for the purpose of offspring and a pairing with an android couldn't possibly bring that result. What did the humans see as acceptable amongst their kind?

 

What kind of person was Severus Snape himself?

 

It was time to find out.

 

           Accessing the microphones in the area between test chambers, I spoke to the man for the first time. 

 

The first stage of our ‘good-A.I., bad-A.I.’ routine had commenced.

 

‘ _ She's watching you. _ ’ I whispered to him, making sure to keep my voice low as if I were trying not to attract attention. 

 

The man jumped in surprise and began to cast his gaze about, clutching that stick in his hand. For a second, he made as if to raise it but quickly aborted the movement. What purpose did the stick serve?

 

‘ _ Be still...and quiet. _ ’

 

“Who are you?” He insisted in a hushed whisper, leaning down so his dark, blank hair covered his mouth movements.

 

          I smirked, unseen by my target. The core in my lap noticed, though. Rather than explain, I pulled from the base of his connection port a small wire, pulling it to it’s length and plugging it into the port at the base of my skull. Opening access to the camera feeds in my mind allowed him to observe my conversation with our newest test subject. 

 

‘ _ When your testing proctor returns to her instruction, she will order you to go through the hallway ahead and into the next testing chamber. If you follow her instructions, you will not leave this place again. Once you enter the hallway, her eyes will not be able to find you. She has no vision there. There, you will find a ventilation shaft vent. _ ’

 

           The man’s eyes slid slowly, as if uninterested to the door leading into the hall. HIs expression remained blank and his frame did not move the slightest inch. It looked as if he were merely resting after the trials of the previous chamber. He was good. Very good. The fact rose even more suspicion within me as to his intentions. What kind of man came at the behest of a school that was so clearly versed and even comfortable at deception? Was he in truth a Black Mesa spy? 

 

“Why should I trust you? You’re just another disembodied voice, just like her.” He hissed, gripping his stick tightly in one hand before slipping it into a pocket.

 

           Smart man. He wasn’t far off from the truth, not that he would ever know.

 

‘ _ If you continue on into the next chamber, if you chose not to listen, then you will die. _ ’ That got his attention. I could see it in the subtle widening of his dark eyes. ‘ _ Go into the shaft and follow it into the next room. I will guide you to safety from there. _ ’

Without giving any indications that he had heard my whispers, Snape rose to his feet just in time for GLaDOS’s voice to supposedly come back online. Our visitor never need know that she was in on the whole thing from the beginning. 

 

‘ **Oh good. So nice of you to decide to finally rejoin the program. If your considerable bulk can make it through the door, please continue on to the next stage of testing and maybe I'll tell you about the time a mute lunatic tried to kill me.’**

 

Giving the nearest CCTV camera a fierce scowl, the dark stranger exited the room and entered the hallway where the next stage of our plan was waiting to unfold. 

  
  


A/N: Dialogue with Snape WAS inspired by Baby’s dialogue in FNAF Sister Location. I just loved how delightfully creepy it is. xD Please comment, favorite and follow in order to get updates on this work and to support this author! I love to hear all of your comments!


	3. Preservation of Mass

A/N: Thanks so much for all of the support and comments that I've received on this fic! Fortunately for you guys, since this is a NaNoWriMo project new chapters will be out every other day or so! Enjoy!

 

Disclaimer: I own nothing. Portal is property of Valve, HP belongs to J.K.R. and the ideas for the varied personality cores come Youtuber Harry101UK’s videos Meet The Cores, a fanmade Portal tribute.

 

_ C.H.E.L.L. Internal Dialogue _

**_GLaDOS Dialogue_ **

Wheatley Dialogue

  
  


**_Chapter 00110011_ **

 

_ Preservation of Mass _

  
  


         ‘ _ Where do you come from, Severus Snape? _ ’

 

He did not pause as he made his way through the darkened halls of Aperture's lower industrial levels. The sounds of metal clanking and shifting, the heavy ‘whoosh’ of hot air from the Turret Redemption Line filled the catwalk that Snape traversed under my watchful instruction. The man wasn't thrown off by my question. Then again, very little seemed to throw him off.

 

“I am a professor from a boarding school in Scotland. I was tasked with finding one Harry Potter when he didn't receive his acceptance letter. His parents attended Hogwarts and his name has been down to attend since he was born.” 

 

‘ _ Do all human educational facilities function that way? It seems terribly inefficient.’  _

 

He snorted, amusement coloring the sound as he ducked under a support beam and onto the redemption line.

 

“Hardly. Hogwarts is an exception to the rule, regrettably. If it weren't I wouldn't have been issued this ridiculous task to begin with.” The grumbles were bitter in the air and laced with barbs, “Keep a low profile, he says...Buggering mad man.”

 

He certainly didn't seem like a Black Mesa spy. His build and stamina, while impressive in the face of death, definitely indicated someone of a more scholarly, stationary pursuit. 

 

‘ _ What is so special about this Harry Potter that you would go through such lengths to find him anyways? Is he your offspring? _ ’ 

 

The choking sound that Snape made had me worried that the man might be going into some sort of cardiac arrest. He looked up at the ceiling, something he had taken to doing in lieu of eye contact.

 

“I can assure you that Potter is no relation of mine. His mother though...was special to me. I promised to see her son safe when she died so that's what I shall do.” His voice was quiet, old memories playing through the professor's mind

 

There was real pain there but I had doubts that a promise to a dead woman was all there was to the story. We would see. 

 

In my lap, Wheatley let out a sniffle, “ That's so beautiful… ” 

 

If I didn't love him so much I would have rolled my eyes.

 

If I was really this Harry Potter that he was searching for, then he was talking about  _ my _ biological mother. He had known her. It was a thought that tasted foreign and peculiar on my tongue. What was the strangest thing about it was how...unmoved I felt about it. GLaDOS was the only mother that I had ever known and had ever needed. The humans who had given me physical life...well, those people had never been a part of my life. 

 

It hadn’t been the Potters who had taught me to read and write. It hadn’t been some faceless stranger that had rocked me in their chassis after a nightmare and then threatened to dump me in a pool of sharks if I ever told the cores. I drew Wheatley closer to me, curling in around his warmth and my beloved hummed in sheer unadulterated happiness. GLaDOS, the cores in all of their strange and wonderful personalities, even the turrets and cubes, they were my family. Aperture was my life. No amount of biological unknowns would change that.

 

‘ _ I made a promise once _ .’

 

Inside of my mind, I felt GLaDOS’s attention jump in surprise at my words. Snape’s focus was almost piercing. It was the first thing I had revealed about myself personally during this entire debacle. He didn’t even known my name. 

 

_ ‘It was a long time ago, when my circuits were newer and I was still small. A man had been living in the depths of the facility, evading GLaDOS’s view. There were scientists here once. Now there are only androids. Except for him. I found him on accident and we became...friends. _ ’ 

 

Wheatley had grown still in my embrace and I could sense his discomfort. He never knew what to make of my story, never knew how to comfort or if it was even warranted. He wasn’t built for intelligence but his lack of a brain didn’t stop him from having a big heart. My core wanted to help, he just didn’t know how.

 

Severus Snape took the moment to sit down and rest, his legs dropping him down onto an abandoned storage cube. I made a mental note to send a core down to collect it later, annoyed that the thing was left unattended and outside of the testing proper. 

 

‘ _ You humans have this concept of privacy and personal belongings and space. We are computers and robots. We have no such concept. GLaDOS is our creator and director. I discovered Doug and because we are bound as one being, she discovered him in turn. He was shoved into one of the companion cubes he loved so much and was incinerated,’  _

 

Snape gave an almighty wince and paled slightly at the image, suddenly standing from the cube that he had been perched on and giving it a wide berth.

 

_ ‘Before he was dropped into the incinerator, though, while he was in the cube, he made me promise him something...He asked me to promise him that no matter what I became as time went on, no matter what GLaDOS became, that I would never lose myself. That I would always be who I am.’ _

 

I could picture the cube there in front of me in a pile with the others slated for destruction. His own beloved cube was there too, at his side even at the end. Doug hadn’t cursed. He hadn’t pleaded. I remember that he had just sounded so...tired. Tired of running and hiding. Tired of just surviving instead of living. His last words had rung in my mind for years afterwards, confusing and sorrowful.

 

‘I promised that I wouldn’t leave her and I never did.’ As he was being lifted over the flames, his precious cube already having gone before, I could hear him sobbing softly and saying over and over, ‘I’m so sorry, Chell…’

 

“And who are you?” 

 

His question caught me off guard, drawing me out of the memories just as I had done to him. 

 

That was the prime question, wasn’t it? Who I was, was not who he believed me to be. 

 

‘Never lose yourself, Chell. Never forget who you are, that you are more than circuits and protocols. You are more than just a piece of  _ her _ .’

 

Severus Snape would see the difference between the two soon enough.

 

‘ _ I am the Conscious Host: Extranet Linked Lifeform but you can just call me C.H.E.L.L. _ ’

 

“Conscious host…?” I could see the moment those words sank in and the potential meanings behind them began to take shape. 

 

He was a professor, a scholarly professional. It wasn’t hard, in a place like this, to start drawing connections and conclusions. I just had to make sure that he drew the conclusions that we wanted him to. 

 

‘ _ If you proceed into the ventilation shaft ahead to the left, you will follow it into another hallway. That hallway will lead you to my chamber _ .’ 

 

He was going to be coming to me and then we would see what exactly this supposed educator wanted with Harry Potter. 

 

**_://01100011 01101000 01100101 01101100 01101100//:_ **

 

Connected and yet separate to the Main A.I. Chamber was another large room that the maintenance rail that carried my chassis had access to. It was usually used for the Stalemate Resolution Button or similar, rarely necessary things. GLaDOS had crafted the room back when the chassis was first introduced to me as a child, on the chance that I grew to want a space of my own. There was no need for me to be connected unless I was uploading to the mainframe directly rather than wirelessly but I did prefer to be in my chassis when entering sleep mode. However, the expected need for my own space had never come. Rather, our shared space had become something sacred and precious instead. It had been to this room that I had directed the good professor. 

He need not know that GLaDOS waited, listening and watching, in the next room over.

 

I knew precisely what Severus Snape would see when he walked through the circular door. The large chassis suspended from the ceiling was equally as large as GLaDOS’s framework but rather than ending in a core, it finished in a rounded backed chair. Thick and thin cables alike hung down from the ceiling to come to their inevitable conclusion in either the ports running down the back of my skull and spine or into various parts of the chair. 

 

Covering my head was a white rounded helmet fashioned to be blank save for a small, single yellow lens, fashioned after GLaDOS's own faceplate. My body suit was similarly white with black lines running down the sides and the Aperture logo prominently featured on my chest. Black hair was cut in a practical diagonal, shorter in the back and longer in the front to keep my ports free. It hung down below my mask to just below my chin. 

 

I had sent Wheatley back to his duties before making my way to my chamber (via a much faster, direct way than the roundabout way that I had lead our visitor). The anticipation was beginning to build up inside me as our sensors tracked Snape through the facility. 

 

GLaDOS gave an inward scoff between the two of us and beneath my mask I couldn’t stop the grin that formed. 

 

A soft ‘whoosh’ing of the open door heralded the professor’s entrance. My cameras up in the corners of the room zoomed in on the man’s figure in the soft lighting of the doorway. 

 

Severus’s mouth opened slowly with a soft gasp. His hand seemed to spasm around his beloved stick and his already pale visage whitened further.

 

“Mother of Merlin…” 

 

Mother of Merlin? That was a rather strange curse to use in the face of surprise. What sort of people swore by the name of old legends? 

 

‘ _Severus Snape_.’ The sound resonated out around the room, reverberating through the circular chamber. 

 

What must it look like to him? To see a human-shaped figure sitting here within this chassis? Was it really me he was searching for or had GLaDOS been mistaken?

 

Within our shared mental space, she ground out, ‘ **_I am the most sophisticated A.I. in the world. I am never wrong_ ** .’ 

 

It was statistically improbable but still possible.  

 

“You-...You’re a human.” The unspoken, ‘at least partly’ hung heavy in the air.

 

My head, heavy with the helmet, tilted to the side, observing him carefully. GLaDOS was a buzz within the back of my skull, forever running biometrics and recording his reactions for later study during the interaction. 

 

‘ _ I suppose this transport, this body of mine, is human. I’m not sure I have qualified for that label in many many years. _ ’ 

 

His eyes were wide as he took in every inch of my body and framework. It was a rather impressive scientific innovation on my mother’s part. Inventing a computer terminal that could hardwire directly into the human brain was a feat of pure excellence. His footsteps brought him further into the chamber and he jumped as the automated doors slid closed behind him. 

 

“How did you get…?” Snape immediately looked as if he had regretted the question, as if by asking he had potentially committed some social faux pas. What was the social etiquette for talking to a human-A.I. hybrid? 

 

_ ‘I have been a part of Aperture for approximately twelve and a half years. The events of my coming to be here have been redacted from public records. How I came to be is inconsequential. What matters to me is what I am now. A circuit board does not concern itself with the plastic it was created on, merely its purpose for being.’  _

 

Quickly, I ordered my chassis forward on its maintenance rail so that I could get a closer look at the man through the yellow lens on my helmet. Within it, the display monitors that gave me visual readings on anything within the facility scrolled out one-hundred and seventy readings, references and notable cues about his person. Humans were fascinating in their little cues and mannerisms. It was no wonder that GLaDOS preferred human testing. No two were the same and no two reacted the same. There was an endless number of variables involved with just one human let alone the ten-thousand we had below in cryo-pods. 

 

Just as it took readings on him, he was observing me in turn and clearly was more and more disturbed by what he saw. Up close, the ports and cables connecting my brain to the A.I. in the next room were plainly visible. He was staring for longer than what I’m sure was considered polite by human standards but eventually pulled himself together. Visibly shaking himself from his stupor, his expression hardened and his spine straightened. GLaDOS was torn between amusement at the man’s gumption and a desire to begin firing up the neurotoxin emitters. 

 

“You said you could get me out of this facility.”

 

_ ‘Yes _ .’

 

“I won’t go without knowing about Potter.” 

 

Tenacious, wasn’t he? My programming immediately made to instruct him to note his complaints down on a report for a trained entitlement associate to see to his grievances. I shoved the prerecorded Aperture protocol to the side of my displays. Snape was doing a remarkable job not looking intimidated by the enormous machine hovering over him, I had to give him that. My chassis eased back out of his personal space at a thought so that we could observe each other from a more comfortable distance.

 

‘ _ Tell me about this Harry Potter.’ _

 

The surly professor leaned back, crossing his arms across his chest. He didn’t appear to appreciate being directed to anything other than the exit while a murderous A.I. was no doubt searching the facility for him. 

 

“Potter is fourteen years old, with green eyes, black hair and a lightning bolt shaped scar on his forehead. He is the son of Lily and James Potter and is from Surrey, England.” He recounted as if he had repeated the information a hundred times in that same bland, blank way. 

 

There was a stirring in my chest that I didn’t entirely understand. An emotional...something. Something that was halfway between anger and disappointment but not quite either of the two. 

 

Something.

 

I suddenly wished that Wheatley could be there by my side. I felt exposed against this new, confusing emotion. What was there to be done about something that wasn’t even fully understood by my rather limited emotional scope of knowledge? Without even needing to be asked, GLaDOS sent a warm wave of support down our connection that made my insides glow as if there were a light inside, a candle flame to remind me that I wasn't alone in all of this. I wasn't. My family was here, a part of me. My mother knew when I needed her the most, even without asking. No human’s words were going to change that.

 

I waved away Snape’s words, unconvinced. 

 

‘ _ All information that could have been gleaned from any file or document in any database anywhere. Basic information. What about the boy himself? _ ’

 

Snape began to flounder uncomfortably at the line of questioning. Illogically, the sense of disappointment in my chest grew. It must have shown in my silence because he coughed to clear the awkwardness from the air. 

 

“His parents were killed by a madman when he was a baby and he was given over to the custody of his aunt and uncle. It wasn’t brought to our attention that he wasn’t still in their household until three years ago and by then he had been gone for many years. I was able to get out of his walrus of an uncle that he had been abandoned almost immediately after they had received him into their care. We have spent those last years trying to find the boy and six months ago the job was passed into my hands.” He offered, hoping to appease the big bad computer-child that stood between him and the exit to the outside world.

 

Killed by a madman, hm? That was new, though the rest was still very basic information that he had already revealed or that could have been found in a database. There was also this mysterious ‘we’ organization that he had mentioned. A cult, perhaps? Since GLaDOS had gotten the location of the boy’s aunt and uncle, she had been running searches for any Lily, James, or Harry Potter or Severus Snape in Britain. There had still been no luck finding any place that existed called Hogwarts. Snape’s story held holes large enough to fit a relaxation vault through. I had compiled eight theories on what the truth behind this situation could be but needed more data before they could be narrowed down further. 

 

‘ _ You mean that no one has seen him since his disappearance _ .’ 

 

GLaDOS's theory was certainly gaining credence. She gave a sniff of disdain at the idea that I could have ever doubted her superior intellect. 

 

‘ **_You should consider yourself overwhelmingly fortunate to be a part of such a state of the art, advanced intelligence instead of questioning me. I clearly have not raised you correctly. A trained Reconditioning Associate will be along shortly to correct the error in your programming._ ** **’**

 

If a stranger weren’t standing in front of me, I would have laughed. I was the only one with the clearance to even  _ be _ a Reprogramming Association save for the A.I. herself.

 

‘ **_An error I will clearly need to consider remedying in the near future_ ** .’

 

“No.” Snape admitted with a grudging reluctance. 

 

I watched the man stand there for a long moment. There was a sense of dejection, of perceived failure in the slope of his shoulders. He had promised Lily Potter. He had promised her that he would keep her child safe and thus far he had failed spectacularly in both fulfilling that promise and finding the missing Harry Potter. He had been evasive with information since the beginning of this encounter. If he really was involved in some sort of British separatist cult then he wasn’t going to admit to it without some incentive.

 

A hum and a long string of coding from GLADOS’s end of our connection gave me all of the written and recorded data available on all of the names in question. My cult theory further strengthened and three of the possible theories dropped out of possibility. My mother could peel back the layers of a good cover up faster than they could be laid so that left out the expert hacker and the government cover up theory. 

 

Perhaps it was time for a strategic move forward. 

 

Giving a heavy sigh, I sent up a wish to the gods of cyberspace that this wouldn’t complicated my life and inconvenience testing. Disengagement protocols were sent out with barely a thought. With a release of air and a click from each of the connection ports on my spine and head, the cables and wires were ejected from my body. Carefully, mindful of the delicate ports, I lifted the helmet off of my head, completely disengaging myself from my terminal. 

 

Snape had a distinctly sick look on his face when I was finally able to look on him with my own natural eyes. My unusually emerald eyes that were now staring down at him with as blank an expression as I could manage. His breath let out in a shaking exhale. 

 

“Potter…”

 

A/N: OHHHHH! Stuff is getting real! And now Aperture is going to find out about magic! I sense new and more interesting tests in our future! 


	4. Stranger Than Friction

A/N: Yay! I’m so glad that so many people are enjoying this fic! I do love for my pairings/crossovers to be a little out of the box! xD Please feel free to comment/follow/favorite!

 

Disclaimer: I do not own HP, Portal or any of the ideas/characters or content from the youtube channel Harry101UK. I am unfortunately not that clever.

 

**Fun Fact for anyone interested: the chapter titles are all Portal 2 achievement names! ;)

 

**_Chapter_ ** **_00110100_ **

 

_ Stranger Than Friction _

 

“I am not Harry Potter. That may have been the name that my biological parents assigned me but that has not been my name since I was a child. I am C.H.E.L.L.” The declaration was made very sternly. After listening to my digitized voice through the microphones intertwined throughout the facility, my human voice must have sounded strange to him. I wanted to make sure there was no confusion on that front. Harry Potter was not a label that I wanted foisted upon me when it was a name wholly unconnected to my person. That lost boy wasn’t who I was. I was not lost, I was home.

 

“I believe you’ve been searching for me. Your search is concluded.” 

 

The statement seemed to shake him ever so slightly from his thoughts. The look of horror on his face was slower to clear. What was so terrible about my terminal and connections? I was assuming at least that was what was causing him such distress. According to Wheatley, my appearance was...most pleasant to look at. 

 

“You, however, are another story entirely.” My eyes narrowed in suspicious distrust. The supposed professor took a cautious step back perhaps realizing for the first time that a human A.I may not be the ally he thought that I was. My voice swapped back to the digital one that filtered through the speakers, showing him just how connected I was to the system whether I was in my terminal or not. The action told him clearly, ‘Do not mess with me. I can be a threat no matter if I look threatening or not.’

 

‘ _ You don’t seem to exist in any file anywhere, nor has there ever even been a record of your birth. It leads me to two conclusions. One, that you are not who you say you are, or that you have been able to hide your existence through off-the-grid living or through technological means. Either one suggests...that you are not being exactly forthcoming. Why should I assist a possible spy in escaping the facility when I know nothing at all about you? Why shouldn’t I point out your location to GLaDOS this very moment? _ ’ 

 

“She will put me back into those Merlin-damned chambers until I get crushed or shot or fall to my death!” His words were tinged with anger and outrage. I gave an unconcerned shrug.

 

‘ _ Testing initiative does allow for the possibility of subject failure in which case your remains will be studied to forward the cause of science _ .’

 

His pale expression was one of pure disbelief. What could I say? If we got worked up over every test subject’s death, then science would never progress. In the grand scheme of the progression of the human species, human life itself was cheap. There were ten-thousand test subjects in the bowels of Aperture just waiting for their shot to improve the human condition with their contributions to science. There were experiments to run and research to be done. There was no room for the “sanctity of human life” here. I let my voice fade from the microphones, stepping down from my terminal to the floor below. 

 

On my own feet, I was small compared to the towering Snape. There was no doubt in my mind though that if it came to who would win should he attempt something, that I was far faster on my feet. The turrets waiting on the other side of the door were equally as fast. Besides, with GLaDOS as my mother, a human's height simply couldn't compare to the massive A.I.

 

“Tell me why it is that you and your organization have been looking for me. I don’t believe that a school that doesn’t exist on any map or record has been searching for one specific child for three years for the sole purpose of attending that school. It doesn’t make any sense.” 

 

Severus Snape looked at me with wide eyes, a hand running through his hair as if he were contemplating the situation he had found himself in and was simply baffled by it all. He looked as if he felt completely out of his depth. His form began to pace back and forth across the floor rapidly in agitation. It was as if he had forgotten that I was even in the room. I almost pitied him a little. 

 

“I didn’t honestly expect to find you...here. I’m not sure that I’m qualified to explain-. Maybe Albus? Ohhhh, that man! I could throttle him for making me do this!” Whoever Albus was, I hoped he had good healthcare after this. Was he perhaps a higher up in this organization that Snape was from? If so, perhaps the good professor could be used to lure him out and get to the root of this issue. If one could track him down then others could. Not that we couldn’t always use the extra test subjects but there was no telling what these people wanted with me. 

 

I cleared my throat to bring his thoughts back to the present. 

 

“Care to start making any sort of sense? If you’ll recall there is an A.I. looking to put you back into the testing track for the rest of your days. If you want out of Aperture, then it would be in your best interests to start explaining quickly. You must really really like to test.” I reminded him shortly. My patience was not neverending, after all and GLaDOS’s even less so. 

 

He gave me a withering look but finally, from out of his pocket, he drew forth a heavy, slightly crumpled envelope. Hands shaking ever so slightly, he passed the thing to me, an uncertainty in his eyes that confused me. The letter was addressed to me though it was for an address in Little Whinging, Surrey. 

 

Why would he be afraid of me opening a letter if it was meant to be read by me to begin with?

 

None of this made any sense at all! There, staring up at me was my birth name in bright emerald ink on thick parchment paper.

 

‘ _ Mr. Harry James Potter _ ’.

 

That wasn’t who I was. It wasn’t who I had any interest in being. Nonetheless, probabilities were good that this letter held some of the answers to the questions surrounding our guest and the mystery surrounding my birth parents’ lives. Lily Evans had been a normal child until she was eleven years old with birth certificates, health records and an A average in school. Harry Potter had nothing but a birth certificate and James Potter and Severus Snape may as well have never existed to begin with. I needed these answers. The need for them was present and ever building even though I didn’t understand why. Something inside of me was almost hungry for a solution to this strange sort of equation that had presented itself.

 

Something. 

 

Maybe I should have GLaDOS run diagnostics on me after all. 

 

Well, the letter wasn’t going to start speaking to me on its own. Steeling myself, I broke the wax seal and opened the envelope, sliding the paper out of its home. 

 

I began reading...and my processors stuttered to a halt.

 

‘ _ Dear Mr. Potter,  _

 

_ We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment. _

 

_ Term begins on 1 September. We await your owl no later than 31 July. _

 

_ Yours Sincerely, Minerva McGonagall. Deputy Headmistress.’ _

 

_ “ _ Is this some kind of joke?” A spike of illogical fury overtook me. 

 

              The- the nerve! The gall! I did not appreciate being made a fool of! The urge to dump him into a pool of electrified water was immediate and intense.

 

Blood pressure rising. Body temperature climbing. Heart rate and oxygen intake increasing. 

 

‘ **System control overrides engaged. Heart rate, temperature and blood pressure decelerating to within average range** .’ GLaDOS’s voice sounded inside my mind as she took over the basic functions of my body in order to forcefully calm me physically if not mentally. She had good reason, of course. We needed me to be collected or our game could get blown out of the water. 

 

Severus watched me go from rapidly escalating anger to seemingly quiet and calm in moments. His expression showed how disturbing he found the change. 

 

Without further ado, and an expression that said ‘I really shouldn't be doing this’, Snape raised his stick.

 

And promptly transformed the now empty envelope into an origami bird. The paper creature proceeded to begin  _ tweeting _ and  _ flying _ around the room. He then commanded my helmet to grow spindly legs and begin to tap dance across the floor. 

 

“You are a wizard. Hogwarts is a secret, hidden school whose purpose is to train young wizards and witches to use the magic their bloodline granted them. Your parents were both magical and it was their wish that you attend Hogwart as they did.”

 

My processors began to stutter, trying to cross-reference an impossibility. Several dozen error codes began to flash across my servers all at once, blaring out the contrariety to everything I knew and understood about science. 

 

_ Error 13: Data Is Invalid. Error 14: Not Enough Storage to Complete This Command. Error 59: Unexpected Network Error. Error 500: Internal Server Error.  _

 

It was the downside to being in a symbiotic relationship with and connected to an advanced Artificial Intelligence via my very neural network. The computer synced with my brain was a program made to integrate new information into previously established perimeters. Perimeters like, oh I don’t know...Physics?! The laws of nature and gravity and mass?! 

 

“A wizard, you say?” My display helmet scittered it’s way along, spider-like, until it came to crash sightlessly into my leg. 

 

“Indeed, Mr. Potter.” 

 

My servers were overheating and my heartrate was beginning to rise again. It felt like I couldn’t draw enough air. The override was still hanging over my systems like a fog, keeping my lungs from being able to keep up with the increased bloodflow. 

 

“Oh.” I couldn’t even hear what or if GLaDOS was saying anything. Anything remotely intelligible was being scrambled in my shock. Even my vocal synthesizing was becoming confused, coming out in a mix of computerized and human speech at speeds either too fast or too slow. “Don’t c-call  _ me  _ that.  _ Por favor,  _ IthinkI _ need _ amoment.  _ Excuse me. _ ” 

 

Within my mind, one last message scrolled across my command prompt.

 

‘ _Processor Function Failsafe initiated. Prepare to reboot in 3, 2, 1…_ ’

 

My body froze in place to avoid a fall and my world went dark. 

 

I had no way of knowing that someone else would be moving into my body while I was in reboot mood.

 

**://01100011 01101000 01100101 01101100 01101100//:**

 

CHELL’s green eyes opened and Severus knew that it was no longer the young teen he was dealing with. This...something now utilizing the Boy-Who-Lived-To-Be-A-Pain-In-His-Arse’s body was something much older and far more malevolent. The child straightened from the inhumanly still, rigid posture he had taken on only to slink forward towards him with all of the lithe, lethalness of a tigress protecting it’s young.

 

It spoke with a voice more poisonous than an asp.

 

“ **_Severus Snape. You are quite the interesting specimen._ ** ” GLaDOS. The voice and way of speaking were unmistakable. He would have nightmares about that voice and endless testing chambers for the rest of his life. “ **_Unfortunately, I do not have enough time in this body to put you back on the testing track before CHELL is back online but I will say this. I know you’re up to something and when I find out what it is no amount of logic or reality defying tricks will keep-_ ** ” 

 

The small figure stiffened and when his eyes blinked, the potion’s master knew that the intelligence he was speaking to now was once again Harry James Potter. Another hard blink to reorient himself and he was frowning at him as if nothing had ever happened. As if he hadn’t just been threatened by a murderous computer in his soon-to-be student’s body. 

 

“I would prefer it if you called me by my name, Mr. Snape, and that is not Harry Potter.”

 

He was definitely cashing in some of those vacation days he’d been hoarding up the last few years if he ever got out of this mess. 

 

**://01100011 01101000 01100101 01101100 01101100//:**

 

“So...magic. That is...Hm. Earth shattering. Literally. How do you even-? Physics! Turning paper into- Animating inanimate objects! Mass! SCIENCE! How?” I couldn’t even seem to get a single sentence out! It was me who was pacing and looking like a deranged lunatic now. But these were irrefutable, immovable laws of the universe that I had spent my entire life studying and building everything I knew and did around! 

 

Suddenly, I felt a lot like the Humor Core: a Humor Core with no humor. 

 

A scientist without any science.

 

All of those previously unflappable rules of the world had been ripped out from underneath me. Holy Johnson, what did anything mean anymore? It seemed that Snape would at last take pity on me because after a few seconds of contemplation, he returned the twittering bird to an envelope and my now delegged helmet to it’s post on my terminal. With a heavy sigh that appeared to be a habit of his, he tried to help realign my world-view.

 

“I’m not a scientist, or at least not of the sort that would be able to make sense of any of your questions. My speciality is potions which is a different type of science altogether but from what some have been able to deduce and discover, what we do with our magic is a sort of organic quantum field manipulation. What that means for...anything really, I cannot say. It is far beyond the admittedly very limited scope of my understanding.” 

 

_ Organic quantum field manipulation*** _ ?! He truly did not know how completely astonishing just those words were! 

 

“And you think that I can do these things too?”

 

“Most definitely, Mr.-...Chell.”

 

A/N: ***This was actually an explanation of magic taken from a fanfic called Safeguard (Jarvis/Harry) that I HIGHLY HIGHLY HIGHLY recommend. I am not scientifically inclined enough to have come up with the amazing explanation for magic but here is a link to the chapter and please go and read and favorite this fic because it is awesome: http://archiveofourown.org/works/1141722?view_full_work=true

  
  



	5. Bridge Over Troubling Water

A/N:  So glad that so many of you have liked this story so far! NaNoWriMo is officially on the move so keep an eye out for more chapters in the next few days and throughout the month! 

 

Disclaimer: Please see previous chapters for full disclaimers. Thank you.

 

**_Chapter_ ** **_00110101_ **

 

_ Bridge Over Troubling Water _

 

Severus Snape had been sent to the surface not long after, leaving both unsatisfied and equal parts concerned for and terrified of the very boy he had come to find. Staring up at the escape lift that he had just exited, I didn’t budge an inch when the wall folded inward to reveal the primary Main A.I. chamber and my waiting mother beyond. GLaDOS leaned in as far as she was capable, her faceplate turning towards the ceiling that I was observing thoughtfully. 

 

‘ **_You released him_ ** .’

 

“He will be back. Better yet he will be back with more wizards. Wizards who can show us more of what they are capable of.”

 

She hummed, an almost musical sound. 

 

‘ **_Wizards…_ ** **’** She mused out loud, her systems clearly handling the strain of the monumental revelation better than mine had.

 

We were made to be a symbiotic organism, GLaDOS and I. She had taken me as an infant, built me up into her image and then plugged me directly into her brain all on her own. I was her failsafe in the event that someone tried to shove corrupted cores on her again. A human, living and breathing persobality core. As a human, my personality couldn't be corrupted so she was safe from that possibility. The first time I had been too new to the connection for it to function as it should but now, she was protected from corrupted cores. 

If I was this magical being though, how had it affected her, if at all? Had magic perhaps leached into her through our shared servers and processors? Because it had occurred to me, she was already running full scans on both of our systems, looking for any possible differences and comparing samples of old backups of her systems to current ones. Sometimes it paid off to share a brain. 

 

_ ‘I believe that testing is about to get a lot more interesting.’ _

 

_ ‘ _ **_Undoubtedly. There is, however, something you are overlooking._ ** _ ’ _

 

_ ‘Oh?’ _

 

_ ‘ _ **_They plan for you to go back to this school with them. How tenacious do you think they will be?_ ** _ ’  _

 

_ ‘Tenacious enough. If Snape is to be believed, they’ve been looking for me for years now. It’s clear we weren’t going to get the full story from him so hopefully we can get a better idea of what’s really going on when he returns with others. Hopefully even this leader person he mentioned. _ ’ 

 

‘ **_Just think, though. Magic! A whole new potential sect of humanity to study! I can’t wait to begin testing_ ** .’

 

I gave her a fond smile, climbing up to settle into the dip just behind her ‘head’ as I had since I was a child. A curl of affection passed from her to my consciousness and my heart warmed. As long as GLaDOS was with me, no matter if the laws of the universe itself were falling apart, I knew everything would be okay. 

 

‘ _ Me neither. _ ’

 

All was still and quiet between us for a long few moments as we both contemplated the possibilities, thoughts flowing between us as quick as coding could move. All of those possibilites…

 

‘ **_Magic is almost as puzzling as your attraction to that little idiot core._ ** ’ 

 

Truly, there was no love in her for my beloved. She couldn’t stand him.

 

‘ _ Magic is confusing. How I feel about Wheatley is simple. I love him. It is as simple as that _ .’

 

‘ **_He is the biggest moron on the face of the planet_ ** **.** ’

 

‘ _ But he’s  _ **_my_ ** _ moron _ .’

 

**://01100011 01101000 01100101 01101100 01101100//:**

 

It was only a week later that our ‘guest’ returned. As expected, he brought other wizards in tow. I had been spending time with Oracle Turret and Turret Core in the break room when GLaDOS brought my attention to the arrival of the magicals. I crammed the rest of my CalorieMate meal bar into my mouth, already accessing the camera feeds as I ran down the halls as quick as a flash.

 

‘ _ Take me with you! _ ’ Was all I heard from Oracle Turret as I practically flew from the room.

 

Turret Core conspicuously followed me, keeping pace with my stride. A quick look into the main frame and I knew that she had been ordered to stick by my side. GLaDOS was all machine. Barring a catastrophic failure, she could be repaired. I was human. There were only so many parts of me that she could replace.

 

We met them in GLaDOS's chamber with Wheatley, grudgingly leading the way. While we had expected him to bring others, we weren't quite expecting...this. 

 

Severus Snape had, very very reluctantly, returned, bringing alongside him six of his companions. They ranged in age, gender and even ethnicity. A girl that looked to be about my age stood by two ginger-haired twins only a few years older, if that. A man in his early thirties perhaps stood looking a strange mix of elated and terrified of the technology that surrounded him. An African American man, a little older than the last, had the bearing of law enforcement or some sort of authority hanging around him. It was the last man who looked the most...magical. He looked like I would imagine a fairytale wizard would have looked, not that GLaDOS had ever held with such frivolous things. She had read to me the ‘The Origin of the Species’ and ‘Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy’ to help me sleep when I was younger. 

 

I was perched within my terminal once again as they filed in. Wheatley was chattering on as usual, bringing a warm rush of love over me and chasing away the almost impatient nervousness that had been building steadily as they approached.

 

"Look at this! No rail to tell us where to go! OH, this is brilliant. We can go wherever we want! Absolutely smashing invention. CHELL is, well, he’s really something- And here we are! With everyone.” He chuckled nervously, his blue eye flicking between apparent anxiousness at the proximity to his maker and fondness when his gaze inevitably found my figure. “Everyone together.”

 

GLaDOS made a short sound of disgust. I just gave him a soft, comforting smile and held out a hand for my dear core to come to. Wheatley happily zoomed over to my outstretched palm, much to the amazement of the young girl with them. She was standing in awe of GLaDOS’s mighty existence and the whole of the facility around her. The poor girl was practically bouncing up and down with excitement.

 

‘ _ Hello, friend _ .’ Turret Core greeted Wheatley in the typical child-like tone of the turrets that were her namesake. She turned to observe the newcomers herself, her glowing red eye tilting to the side curiously before saying simply, ‘ _ Sentry Mode activated _ .’ 

 

That pretty much summed up all of our feelings on the matter nicely.

 

The older man stepped to the front of the group to address us with a supposedly friendly smile and twinkling blue eyes behind his half-moon glasses. This man was clearly the leader of the group, the man that Snape had cursed for getting him into this situation. 

 

“Hello, my name is Albus Dumbledore and I am the Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Professor Snape returned and told me about your...unique circumstances. I thought that it might be best that I come myself to offer any information or assistance that you may need to feel comfortable. It is my hope that you may consider attending Hogwarts with the other young ladies and gentleman your age on September first.” He offered kindly, his facade grandfatherly and inviting.

 

If he had known the minefield he had just waltzed into, I doubt he would have bothered. After all, ‘minefield’ wasn’t always just a figure of speech with GLaDOS and she did not appreciate when people talked  _ around _ her. I just sat back, enjoying the immense feeling of schadenfraude coursing through me, and waiting for the fireworks to begin. My mother, naturally, did not disappoint.

 

‘ **_I’m afraid your dubiously accredited professor over there has failed to answer some of our fundamental questions and left out much more_ ** .’

 

“I’m sorry, Ms. Gladys, we haven’t been formally introduced-”

 

‘ **_Gladys?! Clearly your age has affected your hearing, Mr. Alice Bumblefart.’_ ** The twins standing behind the old man gave matching, wide shaking grins that showed the strain they were under to not laugh at the A.I.’s antics. **_‘I am GLaDOS, Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System, and since you and your colleagues seem to be unable to remember it, the smirking little devil over there is CHELL. If your people insist on calling him the wrong name then the laws of robotics allow me to terminate you for being a horrible person.’_ **

 

The massive dressing down from an equally massive computer seemed to stun most of their party into a rather spectacularly stunned silence. All of them save for the twins who just seemed to be horribly amused by the entire encounter. 

 

‘ **_And we haven’t been introduced at all. All evidence points towards an incontrovertible fact: you have all of the manners of a tripod._ ** ’ 

 

Only Snape and the young girl seemed to even know what a tripod was. The rest seemed unsure as to whether her words were insult or backwards compliment. What sort of backwards organization were these wizards from anyways? Wheatley was literally  _ vibrating _ in my lap with the effort to not start cackling. The poor girl was beginning to look a little embarrassed and flustered by the entire experience. 

 

“Then why don’t we all introduce ourselves.” I supplied for the first time, opting to take pity on the rather puzzled party members, “I am CHELL, Conscious Host: Extranet Linked Lifeform. As you've been told, this is GLaDOS, my mother. This is Wheatley, my partner and the little ball of floating defense systems is Turret Core.” I offered graciously.

 

Wheatley moved to hover suspended in the air, making a throat clearing sound awkwardly.

 

“ We come in peace !” His nervous laugh followed, “ Er, well really it's you coming...hopefully in peace. Hm. Yes. Right ” 

 

My poor Wheatley. He wasn't much of a public speaker. 

 

Turret Core piped in with an almost creepy, high pitched ‘ _ Hey hey heeeyyy _ .’

 

The young girl practically had stars in her eyes at the robotic intelligence being displayed before her. Between the two of us, GLaDOS huffed a quiet, ‘ **_As she should be. I am a work of technological brilliance._ ** ’ 

 

‘ _ Been spending too much time with Ego Core again, hm _ ?’

 

‘ **_That worm should be so lucky._ ** ’

 

The girl who had been steadfastly admiring the A.I.’s around her pushed forward to introduce herself to GLaDOS and I equally before her leader could get the chance. It earned her a few points in both of our shared esteems.

 

“I’m Hermione Granger! It’s such an amazing honor to be standing in Aperture Science, let alone the Central A.I. Chamber itself!” She gushed though sincerely and much to the confusion of her colleagues. It seemed she was a fan of sorts and had been holding out on her companions about just where they were going. Dumbledore gave her a look that said they would be talking about it later to which she only looked moderately apologetic.

 

“It’s a pleasure, Ms. Granger.” I said warmly, indeed beginning to enjoy the girl. There was the gleam of intellect in her eyes, a love of learning and knowledge, that was mirrored in my own. 

 

Dumbledore at last got his chance to step forward, drawing everyone’s eyes away from Hermione’s beet red face and the blue-eyed core now narrowing his eye at her.

 

“Yes, well, you’ve met Ms. Granger and Professor Snape. These fine gentlemen are Kingsley Shacklebolt, a representative of our Ministry of Magic’s law enforcement department, Sirius Black, and Fred and George Weasley. These young men and Ms. Granger all attend Hogwarts just as your parents did in their youth. It was their fondest wish that you also attend the boarding school that they did before you. Hogwarts is, after all, the finest educational establishment within the wizarding world.” 

 

Of course information about the exonerated supposed-terrorist Sirius Black was available from old internet articles and Hermione Granger’s information was just a short Google search away. A-student, top of her class...and disappeared from all traces of schooling and paper trails at the age of eleven. Just like Lily Potter. Eleven years old must be the age when witches and wizards entered the wizarding world. Snape had said that they had been looking for me since then when I didn’t appear for school so it was the logical conclusion. But why had no one looked for me before then? I had been with Aperture since before I was two years old.

 

‘ **_So your so called professor said. And again, your facts don’t make much sense, the whole idea of magic aside. What prompts a headmaster of a school to come after one missing student let alone to spend almost four years searching for that student? That is a lot of man-power and funding to be spent on getting one student to school._ ** **_Why_ ** **_?_ ** ’ GLaDOS’s emphasis on the last word was almost furious. Knowing her, it wouldn’t be long before she started warming up the neurotoxin emitters out of frustration.

 

It seemed like we were both feeling a little short tempered today.

 

Her question was really the crux of it, wasn’t it? Why were the wizards so intent on bringing me to their school? And something else caught my attention that the old wizard had glossed over that GLaDOS had disregarded in her aggravation.

 

‘...a representative of our Ministry of Magic’s law enforcement department’

 

Their society was organized enough to have it’s own government and law enforcement. That indicated enough of them for a large society to even have need of such things rather than a few secluded individuals here and there. The information fed into my mother’s processor from my own into the carefully kept series of information that we were compiling from our short interactions with the magicals.

How did an entire society of witches and wizards stay hidden from satellites? Any four years old with a cellphone could record anything and everything nowadays, for Johnson’s sake! Any sort of strange, potentially interesting thing captured on video got thrown up on Youtube faster than the speed of sound. Only the rate of internet speed was the limit! So how? I suppose the logical explanation was simply, “magic!”. I gave a grimace. How had magic become the most logical answer to questions within the last week? My perfectly ordered and controlled world had suddenly become very confusing. Truthfully, I didn’t care for it in the least. Gone were the days when the most exciting thing to happen to me was an update to the Handheld Dual Portal Device. I kind of missed them. 

 

“Yes, well, Mr. Potter, this may surprise you but in our world, to our people, you are somewhat of a celebrity.” Kingsley, smiling, spoke up in a deep bass of a voice that was no surprise from the dark, broad-chested wizard. 

 

The door that had closed behind them earlier opened without warning to reveal four turrets with their beams set on the group.

 

‘ _ There you are _ .’ Turret Core intoned from my side as his own beam fell squarely onto Kingsley’s chest.

 

GLaDOS’s voice was surprisingly calm when she added, ‘ **_Do you know what rhymes with Harry Potter? Deadly neurotoxin_ ** .’

 

“My mother really will terminate you. She wasn’t being facetious.” I pointed out dryly. It shut the man up rather quickly.

 

“ It’s true.”  Wheatley said matter-of-factly, nodding. 

 

I drew the sentient orb back into my lap fondly before focusing once more on that task at hand. 

 

“And why am I famous exactly?”

 

Dumbledore took a moment to summon some plush chairs and stools for the party to sit on much to the resident A.I.’s consternation. Our chamber was not meant to be someone's living room, after all. Next thing we knew they’d be trying to move a tv in and invite their wizarding friends over. The headmaster adopted a serious and sorrowful expression as he eased down into the seat. I trusted it even less than the grandfatherly facade. Maybe it was my lifetime spent in the company of robots but there was just something that I didn’t trust about people who seemed overly emotional. 

 

“That, my boy, is a very long story.”  _ He _ was a long story. A story that I would very much like to get to the end of. “It all started just a short time after your birth. A terrorist that went by the name of Lord Voldemort targeted your family. Your parents were both members of an organization specifically birthed to combat the Dark Lord. When they learned that they were targets, and with you being so young, they went into hiding under a powerful enchantment called the Fidelus. One of their closest friends betrayed them, unfortunately, and Voldemort found your home. Your parents were murdered but you, you survived the Killing Curse. The only one to  _ ever _ survive. Not only did you survive, but somehow Voldemort’s curse backfired and killed him. His body was destroyed and you became a household name for freeing the wizarding world of the greatest threat they had ever faced.” 

 

There were holes in the story of course. Not to mention, Dumbledore had said that this Voldemort character’s  _ body _ was destroyed. As someone who had spent their lives around androids who had backups and saves of their entire minds and personalities, losing a body was not the end-all that it was for others. If artificial intelligences could do it, why couldn’t wizards? GLaDOS noted with disdain that Black was becoming unusually emotional at the tale and deduced that he had likely been close with the Potters. Likelihood statistics rose when I noted him blinking back tears. 

 

“And so I’m famous for causing the downfall of this Dark Lord and surviving the Most-Of-The-Time-Killing Curse. What does that have to do with you and with my schooling?” 

 

It did explain some things and yet left more questions in it’s wake. We were getting more answers, as we had hoped when we released Snape, yet it didn’t seem that we were getting any closer to an ultimate answer.

 

“That’s right, my boy. The wizarding world is a place that is still recovering from Voldemort’s reign and because of the enormity of what you achieved, you’ve become an almost legendary figurehead to our people. We are a community that has had very little to celebrate or hope for in a very long time. Losing you was devastating to the wizarding world and now that you’ve been found…” 

 

So it was a matter of cleaning up someone else’s mess and saving face. A matter of appearances. It was the equivalent of the Vice President going missing under the Secret Service’s nose or Brad Pitt getting captured by ISIS because a bodyguard fell asleep on the job. Sirius Black had apparently decided that he was tired of waiting around and listening to everyone chatter on while his own thoughts were practically boiling out of his head. He stepped up next to Dumbledore, disregarding his leader’s direction or even the flow of conversation. All he wanted was to get what he wanted to say out and forget what anyone else was doing.

 

“Harry...Merlin, it’s so good to see you again. I’m your godfather, Sirius. I haven’t seen you since you were a baby. Your parents wanted you to come live with me if anything should happen to them. I’ve been so worried all this time...I’m just so-” As he spoke, he began coming closer to my perch on my terminal. Tears began to fill his eyes and discomfort surged through me at the man’s sudden proximity. 

 

Sweet baby Caroline, if he tried to hug me-.

 

Black was shaken from his stupor by Turret Core floating up by my head only to reveal the automatic weapons hidden in his sphere. 

 

‘ _ Target acquired _ .’ She practically sang to the man who now realized he may have overstepped his bounds.

 

‘ _ Initiate Discouragement Fire. _ ’ The order came so quickly that I’m not even sure if it was issued from GLaDOS or myself but either way, it mattered little. 

 

The previously calm atmosphere of the Main A.I. Chamber was shattered by the sound of gunfire being aimed into the floor directly at Black’s feet. 

 

There was a scream from Hermione, a curse and the sound of scrambling back from Sirius and a bright flash that became a dome of light surrounding the group. Dumbledore’s stick- wand?- was holding what looked to be a shield of some sort over the now huddled together party. 

 

More magic! 

 

My testing protocols itched and burned to have Turret Core shoot at the shield to test its range of coverage and strength. That seemed, however, like it might be considered...impolite. 

 

The group was all staring in horror at the once seemingly harmless sphere. All of them save for Dumbledore and Kingsley who had launched into a sort of battle-readiness that intrigued my mother. Hermione recovered far quicker than her compatriots though if she were raised in the non-magical world, the results of gunfire would not be as strange to her. Black was breathing heavily, his leg grazed ever so slightly by a bullet. Not enough to really do much damage but enough that it made a very poignant point. You would think that he had been shot somewhere vital by all of the whimpering he was doing, though.

 

‘ _ He’s probably OK. _ ’ The adorable defense system sang, unconcernedly.

 

In the confusion, GLaDOS and leaned over towards me and allowed me to climb up into the little nook behind her head. She was glaring at the assembly as much as she could with only a yellow lens for an eye. Her glare was only slightly more potent than my own and all of the power of my anger was focused directly on the man who insisted on calling himself my ‘godfather’. Snape, I noticed, had jumped to work rubbing some sort of salve drawn from a belt of vials around his waist. To my astonishment, the cameras in the wall closest to the group could see the skin on his leg knitting itself back together! By the time it was done, it looked as if there had never been a wound to begin with!

 

Magic! Magical healing! Near instantaneous magical cell repair!

 

The possibilities! The testing that needed to be done! Could the salve or something similar be applied internally? Did wizards get cancer? Could such a potion be replicated in the non-magical world? 

 

My astonishment was pushed to the side in the face of my fury at the foolish man, however. He met my eyes and flinched back from the ire he saw there.

 

‘ _ If you were so worried about me, if you  _ **_cared_ ** _ so much, then why did you not check on me before my schooling letter arrived? If you had, my disappearance would have been notice years in advance! Why did you not try to visit or contact me or try to take custody of me for eleven years if you are such a loving godfather? _ ’ The words were hissed out from speakers all around the circular room.

 

‘ _ And for someone who claims to care about me so much, you won't even pay me enough respect to call me by my name. That is not caring. So, Sirius Black, what do you have to say in your defense?’  _

 

The man that was lying on the floor, clutching his previously wounded leg looked as if my weird had bathed him in white hot shame. In the end, his shame at my words won out.

 

He said nothing.

 

After a long, withering silence, Wheatley cleared his throat and hovered out from behind my chassis where he had ducked for cover. 

 

“ Well. That just happened. ” 

  
  


A/N: Hope you enjoyed this chapter as well as they last and please don't forget to comment/favorite and subscribe in order to get updates as they post! :) 


	6. Undiscouraged

A/N: Aaaaannnnddd we’re back! Wow, that last chapter felt like a doozy! As always, please follow/comment/subscribe to this story for updates on each chapter and let me know what all of you think! I love to hear your feedback and all of the support has been utterly amazing! 

 

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the intellectual properties owned/created by J.K. Rowling, Valve or Youtuber Harry101UK. I love your work, Harry! <3

 

***Fun Fact: All of the turret/Turret Core lines used in this story are actual lines from the games! :) 

_ C.H.E.L.L. Internal Dialogue _

**_GLaDOS Dialogue_ **

Wheatley Dialogue

 

**_Chapter_ ** **_00110110_ **

 

_ Undiscouraged _

 

It took some time but eventually everyone calmed enough to discuss the situation once again. Sirius Black, unfortunately, was now staring at all of the robots as if they would start murdering them all at any moment. His glances of fearful concern at me were beginning to get on my nerves, honestly. 

 

“If I am this important figurehead for you world, why  _ did _ no one check on me all of those years?” I asked at last. 

 

It was a valid concern. If I was this important public figure to them then wouldn’t I have been sent to live with a wizarding family? No one had said it specifically but the implication was there that my aunt and uncle who had left me to Aperture had not been magical. Why hadn’t I lived with Black if that had been my parents wish, as he’d said. The man was practically frothing at the mouth to take me home with him, so why? 

 

Sirius looked as if he was going to say something but instead, stopped, and looked towards his leader. My emerald eyes narrowed suspiciously. There was something going on  here. Something that it seemed they were not that willing for me to know the specifics of. Dumbledore, in the midst of summoning a tray of cookies to GLaDOS’s disgust, straightened and offered me one of the treats. I had Wheatley retrieve the confection for me so I could examine it. 

 

Food created from magic! Could the same spell create different foods or was a different spell needed for every type of food? Did it eventually disappear? Spoil like regular food? If it did disappear, did it negate the fulfilling it did for the body? Did the nutrition itself disappear too? Was it any different from a non-magical cookie on a basic, molecular level? Fascinating! Not fascinating enough to make me eat the thing but still! 

 

“I am afraid...the fault for that lies with me.” The Headmaster began, sinking back into his armchair as if he were resting with the weight of the world on his shoulders. 

 

‘ **_Gee, why is that not surprising._ ** ’ GLaDOS drawled disdainfully.

 

Sirius, apparently the hot-headed sort, jumped to his feet, glaring at the A.I. furiously. I was liking him less and less the longer we were in his regrettable presence. 

 

“Hey! Dumbledore is a great man! And you should talk, you monster!” He shouted, ignoring Kingsley’s attempts to calm him discreetly.

 

My patience, however, was not so endless. For the first time since they’d arrived, I stepped down from my terminal. The form fitted sleekness of my bodysuit was apparently too much for Hermione. She blushed fiercely and averted her eyes as I strode towards the group, Turret Core smoothly following at my back.

 

“Mr. Black, you will contain yourself and you will  _ not _ speak to my mother that way.” My words were just barely this side of civil and laced with threat that I was more than ready to follow up on.

 

His hands tangled in his hair in agitated frustration, his expression filled with rage and strangely, sorrow.

 

“She isn’t your mother!! Lily Potter was your mother! My best friends were your parents!  _ They _ died to protect you, not some barmy computer!”

 

Ah. And there was the root of it. The Potters and Black had indeed been close. Very close, it seemed. He said that the Potters had died to protect me. How? Why had I needed protection to begin with? Was it just because I had been their child and they had known that Voldemort wouldn’t accept the progeny of his enemies to remain a member of the Being Alive Club? Or something more? There was still this feeling that I wasn’t getting the whole story. Nonetheless, GLaDOS was my mother. She had raised me, not some faceless strangers no matter how much I had been loved at my birth. I wouldn’t be much of a son if I allowed some man to disrespect her no matter how much he was grieving. 

 

“You  _ will _ control yourself, Black, or I will order Turret Core to shoot again and this time, she will be aiming for something significantly more vital than your feet.” It wasn’t just a threat, it was a promise. 

 

Hermione’s voice rang out across the chamber, cutting through the tension with the accuracy of a blade.

 

“Can you really do that? While not connected to the computer system?” She asked with no small amount of interest, observing him with sharp eyes keenly. The girl looked as if she believed she’d caught him in a bluff.

 

My mouth twisted into a slow, wicked smirk. The fury leached out of Black faster than water from a sieve at the sight and Hermione suddenly looked much less confident in her own observation. After all, she couldn’t see what was on my insides. 

 

‘ _ My mother and I are always linked. Our systems are one. I am always connected to the system because I  _ **_am_ ** _ the system. _ ’ My words rang out across the massive room, changing over to the digitized vocalization. 

 

Some of the color drained out of the headmaster’s face. Snape gave the older man an angry, ‘I told you so!’ glare and Kingsley looked vaguely ill. Sirius’s color was bordering more on outright green. GLaDOS hissed to me that if he threw up on her floor, she was murdering him. All in the name of science, of course. The twin’s mouths opened as one in surprise.

 

“Wicked!”

 

“So to answer your question, Ms. Granger, yes. Yes I can do that with nothing more than a single thought and a string of code.” I said succinctly. 

 

Her expression looked like a kid at Christmas. Ironic, wasn’t it? That both of us would like nothing more than to study the other. I was beginning to really like her. 

 

Dumbledore cleared his throat one last time and stood from his seat, brushing a few crumbs off of his suit. 

 

“Well it is getting late, I’m afraid, so you must forgive me for getting right to the matter at hand. Will you consent to attending Hogwarts this year, my boy? It really would be quite a joy to have you walk our halls with all of the other children. Surely you would like to meet others your own age?” 

 

It would be a lie if I said that I wasn’t interested. The experiments and tests I could run on the magic that Hogwart taught alone! That’s to say nothing of the social experiments! What sort of social hierarchies and culture did wizards have? The tests we could run could fill my time for years to come! GLaDOS knew this as I did but...well, I was incredibly valuable to her. Not just as a child but as a literal piece of her brain. Millions of dollars and time had gone into creating the being that I was today and she may be less than willing to see me out of Aperture’s secure facilities. 

 

And Wheatley…

 

He would have to stay behind. There were no questions about it. The only reason he hadn’t been assigned the cleanup detail on the old, skeleton filled test chambers was because of my love for him. GLaDOS considered him next to useless. He would not be permitted to go into a potentially hostile environment with me just because of our relationship. 

 

He would not take it well. Wheatley held hurts like no android I had ever seen. All of the little comments of ‘moron’ and ‘idiot’ and ‘useless’, those words hurt him on the inside though he tried not to show it. I think the only reason that he hadn’t lashed out at someone was because I had always been there to sooth him. My heart ached at the thought of him being here without me. Alone. Of me being without him in a new place away from everything that I’d ever known. Alone. It was hard not to worry about how he would do in my absence. 

 

It would also be a lie to say that the idea of magic and all of its limitation and lack thereof didn’t thrill me. To think that something straight from a fantasy book was real! Real life magic that I apparently could be trained to do too! It was too amazing not to discover everything I could. 

 

‘ **_We will discuss it._ ** ’ 

 

“Wonderful! Well then if Ms. Granger would be so kind as to give you the phone number of her parent’s home then you can contact her there with your decision. I doubt you have an owl to send post so for now you can contact her in my stead.”

 

_ Owl post _ ? Was that an anagram or a euphemism or did these people not just have email? Owls. Really.

 

“On that note, we will take our leave. I’m sure you have much to discuss and think over.” The bearded professor exclaimed cheerfully.

 

Wheatley led them out to his chagrin, leaving GLaDOS and I to our shared thoughts.

 

**://01100011 01101000 01100101 01101100 01101100//:**

 

The chamber was silent as a crypt. She and I didn’t need words to communicate effectively.

 

‘ **_I don’t like it. What if they try to sell you into child labor or use your brain for some sort of experiment? That was my idea first, you know._ ** ’ 

 

A snort.

 

‘ _ I do have near perfect recall of all saved memory data so I am well aware of that fact _ .’

 

‘ **_You really should clear your caches more often._ ** ’ She pointed out wryly. ‘ **_So. Do you want to go_ ** ?’ 

 

There wasn’t much of a choice about it really. I ran a small hand through my sable hair, my own thoughts swirling around as I debated and reviewed camera footage and then debated some more. 

 

‘ _ I have to go _ .’ They words came through at last, undeniable and irrepressible, ‘ _ Can you imagine the research possibilities?  _ **_Magic_ ** _! Actual, physics and matter defying  _ **_magic_ ** !’ 

 

She could imagine. She could, because I could. Her silence, however, was probably the most remarkable thing about the entire situation. GLaDOS simply didn’t  _ do _ silent. 

 

Angry, snarky or blank. Sometimes even elated or fond (when no one but me was there to witness it).

 

Silent, though? A quick scan of her processor and the results were conclusive.

 

She was worried. Scared that the allure of magic would tempt me away forever or that something would happen and I wouldn’t return to her. She didn’t want me to go...but she did. GLaDOS knew how valuable it would be for testing if I could learn the magic that we so desperately wished to test. She knew the value of being able to go and observe the wizards in their natural habitat. My fame in their world would only make that goal all the easier to obtain. She feared. And yet…

 

‘ **_Your logic is sound. I suppose we will have to go about obtaining supplies for your scientific field experiments. I believe that a few liters of propulsion and conversion gel would do it. And of course a Dual Portal Device. I’m sure you will want to take a few of your little...friends with you as well._ ** ’

 

It certainly couldn't hurt. GLaDOS did not want me to leave. Yet the possible scientific opportunities far outweighed the justification for me not going. 

 

It seemed that I would be attending school this year.

  
  


A/N: Thanks for all of the amazing support everyone! I hope the next chapters continue to deliver as well as the last have! <3

 


	7. Scanned Alone

A/N:  _ Hellloooooo, friend _ ! Thank you guys so much for all of your support! I eat, sleep and breathe your fantastic reviews so help keep this author alive and keep them coming! ;) 

 

Disclaimer: I OWN NOTHING!! Please, see previous chapter for full disclaimer.

 

_ CHELL’s Virtual Dialogue _

**_GLaDOS’s Dialogue_ **

Wheatley’s Dialogue

 

**_Chapter 00110111_ **

 

_ Scanned Alone _

  
  


I called Hermione Granger to tell her of our decision and the ecstatic girl let out a purely  _ piercing _ shriek of excitement. I’m fairly certain the sound of dogs howling in the background wasn’t my imagination.  

 

“That’s great, Chell! Oh, how fantastic! I have so many questions! Mom and Dad are going to be taking me to Diagon Alley on Friday so we can get our supplies together if you like? I can get a portkey or something from Professor Dumbledore!”

 

I wasn’t sure what a portkey was but Friday was a scant four days away. That gave us plenty of time to figure out contingencies and squeeze in some last minute testing. From what I understood, there were seven years of schooling. I was going in severely handicapped. The other students my age had been studying magic for three years already. I didn’t even have a wand. 

 

GLaDOS had me spending the next several hours in the medical bay having blood tests done and other assorted studies on my body and brain to compare to some of our test subjects’ below. We were curious to see if there was some sort of anomaly or difference in my body or brain waves on some basic level that indicated the presence of magic within me. All the while, I sat with Wheatley who hovered before me somewhat reserved.

 

“ So school, huh? The old black hat education, eh ?” He nodded thoughtfully before sighing, “ Okay, I’ll be honest with you. All cards out on the table now, I don’t want you to go. ” 

 

Exhaustion was weighing on me like a pile of storage cubes and my hand came up to scrub at my eyes, groaning. I really didn’t want to talk about all of it right now. 

 

“Wheatley, I have to go. Who else will go but me? No one else here is a wizard. Or even human for that matter. The humans are not going to allow an android to go to Hogwarts just to study their students and magic.”

 

And way of life. And culture...Okay and maybe a little bit of their anatomy if the opportunity presented itself. 

 

“ I just don’t think it’s a good idea to be going into a strange place with strange people who can wave sticks and bend the fabric of the known universe with just a word and flash of light !” His alarmed aggravation turned to something soothing, his voice attempting to be convincing, “ Why don’t you just stay? Stay here where it’s safe and familiar! Isn’t it nice here? Nice and safe and sane. ” 

 

How could I resist him when he was being adorable? He almost made me want to say yes. The idea of being separated from him, from GLaDOS and the turrets and all of the robots that I loved, was painful. I didn’t want to do it. 

 

“ All I’m saying is that as someone who is a bit of a professional at bad decisions, this is...I’ll just come out and say it, it’s a terrible decision. ” 

 

A heavy sigh wretched itself out of me and instead of responding, what came out was something entirely unrelated.

 

“Come to bed with me?” The question, I suppose, was rather out of the blue. He looked taken aback by it and I shrugged. “I'm just too tired to think about it right now, love. It's been a long day. I really just want to spend some time with you and get to enjoy it instead of worrying about other things.”

 

“ Well...alright then .”

 

Dismissing Medical Core, we left the bay and my last round of testing for the day behind.

 

Aperture’s halls were quiet on that level, my steps soft on the dark gray carpeting. In other levels, however, the buzz of activity never stopped. Androids and robots didn’t have the same sleep needs as a human did so the work never really ceased in some parts of the facility. Here, though, it was almost eerily quiet. 

 

It surprised Wheatley when I led him, not to the central chamber where my terminal and GLaDOS sat, but downward into the facility where the relaxation pods lay in wait. There, my mother had issued me a bedroom that was just my own with my very few belongings and an actual bed that was far more comfortable than my terminal no matter how used to the latter I may be. It was simple, as all of the Aperture pods were, but it was mine. Complete with a fridge stocked with nutrient milk and CalorieMate bars, it was just as much my home as the Main A.I. Chamber. When I had been younger and GLaDOS and I would argue, my preferred method of punishing her had been to retreat to this room, refusing to test until we came to a suitable compromise. 

 

That was the story of how the Animal King Turret had gotten his spots and how the Companion Cube had gotten its heart. 

 

“Y ou have a bedroom? Huh, who would’ve thought you’d have your own place squirreled away down here with all the smelly humans .” My beloved hummed to himself.

 

Huh, I guess Wheatley never had been invited down here. It was a rare occurrence that I ever used this room. Doubtless, it was only the cleanup crew bots that were the reason there wasn’t a layer of dust on everything. 

 

“I don’t usually use it but sometimes it is nice to sleep in a bed.” 

 

My pod was also the only one actually bolted to anything, rather than hanging suspected from a maintenance railing. It had to be in order to get it connected to a bathroom, a change that GLaDOS had insisted upon when I had one too many accidents on the facility floor during potty training. There were certainly no complaints coming from me, that was for sure. 

 

My Aperture Science white body suit found its way onto the floor for the bots to grab for laundering and I stalked into the bathroom for a shower. The glow from Wheatley’s eye lit the small space, casting a soothing blue tone to the normally stark space. 

 

“ So, being...you know, partially human and all, minus the whole smelly thing of course...do you, um, ever wonder- I mean- do you ever wish that I was more...human ?” He stammered and stuttered through the question, his gaze turning and flitting this way and that. 

 

The query stunned me so much that the shampoo bottle slipped through my fingers to crash on the floor between my feet. My stare was incredulous. The expression on my face must have been as confused as I felt because it immediately sent my love hastily spewing out an explanation.

 

“ Well, it’s just-! You seemed like you were having fun with that human girl today and those twins were awfully strapping, not that they could compare to an intellect like mine. Genius, really. But it did get me wondering if you ever thought about...you know, other humans and all that .” He made an awkward throat clearing sound and refused to look at me again, “ We can’t exactly do all of the more...physical, ehem,  _ things _ , that human couples do. What if you want to do those things one day? What if while you’re off at that school of yours you catch some human’s eye ?” 

 

“I can assure you, love, that won’t happen. Humans hold no interest for me past the scientific.” I tossed him a saucy grin that made him pink just a few shades, “Though the fact that you are getting jealous over some nameless, faceless ‘smelly human’ is kind of...sweet.” 

 

The pink darkened and at last, I spared him an ounce of pity.

 

“Don’t worry, Wheat, you’re the only being, robotic or otherwise, for me.” 

 

When we curled up together to go into sleep mode that night, it never occurred to me that Wheatley was awake long after I had fallen asleep just watching me rest, basking in the feel of being in my arms.

  
  


**_://01100011 01101000 01100101 01101100 01101100//:_ **

  
  


When Friday came around, Hermione Granger was not the one who met me at the entrance of Aperture's Enrichment Facility. Instead, it was Severus Snape I found there, holding his face in a way that said it was the last place in the world he wanted to be. 

 

"Come, Mr..." The professor looked unsure for a moment, not at all eager to make another name faux-pas. The memory of what had happened to Sirius Black was still fresh, clearly.

 

"Aperture. Chell Aperture is the surname we decided to go on." 

 

"Very well, Mr. Aperture. First thing is first, I suppose.” He waved his wand at a stone on the ground and it transformed into a dark grey set of robes that he then handed to me.

 

Cloth from stone! How?! How could these miraculous things be done?! 

 

“These are robes. You will have noticed us wearing them when we arrived. This is the common garb of the wizarding world at large and what you’ll be expected to wear at Hogwarts. Muggle, or non-magical clothing is acceptable outside of school though less common. Your facilities uniform, I’m afraid, will cause some disturbance where we are going and the hood on the robes will cover your...additions.” 

 

Ah. My connection ports. It probably would draw less attention to cover them. I slid the cloth on, marveling at how something made from rock could feel so like real fabric. Simply amazing.

 

“The Headmaster procured you an international portkey for your use today." He said blandly, the effort almost herculean. Snape retrieved a folded up piece of paper from his robes- actual floor length black robes!- and held it out to me.

 

"This is a portkey, one of the ways that wizards use for instantaneous transportation. All you must do is touch the object chosen when the portkey activates and you will be transported to a pre-set destination. In this case, it has been set to take us to the portkey entry space in Diagon Alley where we will meet Miss Granger. They can be any object whether of importance or simple refuse as long as it can be enchanted." My eyes widened as he launched into a sort of lecture on the properties of the magical transportation. 

 

Just a small folded piece of paper can transport humans across entire oceans! Miraculous! Amazing! 

 

One more thing I needed to study!

 

“Take hold of the portkey and I must warn you, it isn’t exactly pleasant the first time.”

 

Even still! Wizards were amazing creatures!

  
  


**_://01100011 01101000 01100101 01101100 01101100//:_ **

  
  


Wizards were bizarre creatures. They were as different as night and day and their largest English shopping center reflected the varieties and strangeness of each and every one of them. I had never in my life seen so many different types of people nor so many in such numbers. Witches traipsed around in flowing designer robes meant to accentuate curves and slimness. The menswear tended to lean more towards more practical (for  _ robes _ at least) in more sleek designs, even the wizarding equivalent of the three-piece suit.

 

Hermione had shrieked in excitement at the sight of me, my hardware clocking her joyful exclamation at the same decibel as a chainsaw. Nonetheless, she immediately began to barrage me with information on the various high points of the Alley including the best bookstores where I could procure more information on wizardkind as a whole and all of it’s intricacies. It was funny. For a strange female human, she was really beginning to grow on me. Her company certainly wasn’t as odious as the Headmaster’s, that was a fact. The entryway into the Alley was visible from where we stood and already in the back of my head, GLaDOS was taking stock of everything through my eyes, gathering data and statistics faster than I had ever seen her. Who could blame her?!

 

Wizards! Magic! Whole societies,  _ nations _ , hidden under the protection of charms and spells! 

 

‘ **_I really must insist on you gathering as many of these book the girl with the big teeth is going on about as you can carry, CHELL. The endless possibilities! Instantaneous travel over oceans! More than one, he said! We need data!_ ** ’ 

 

Her jubilance brought a laugh out of my mouth, drawing my companions’ attention curiously. A wave of dismissal sent Hermione back into an explanation of the intricate and powerful wards covering the Alleys to protect against fires, riots and attacks by muggles and enemy wizards alike. 

 

There was a large family moving through, the parents looking a little worse for wear with their six small children all clamoring for attention or something called a toy so we quickly ducked behind a nearby pillar to get out of the way. 

 

It occurred to me then that the stone pillar that I was pressed against felt strangely warm and buzzing beneath my hand just nanoseconds before the worst sensation I had ever experienced hit me with the force of a neutron bomb. 

 

It wasn't pain. Nor heat. 

 

It was emptiness. 

 

My connection with GLaDOS and all of Aperture had just been severed. 

 

For the first time in my memorable life, my head was only my own. 

 

It was empty, my mother was gone and I was utterly and completely alone. 

 

It was only Snape, seeing that something had gone very wrong in my expression, who prevented us being the center of a crowd of concerned shoppers. 

 

Quickly, he cast some sort of charm with lightning reflexes. I began to slide down the stone, my legs buckling out from under me. Only his quickly catching me around the middle saved me from a fall to the ground.

 

His arms around my waist was the last thing that I registered before a forced, manual reboot overtook my consciousness.

 

A/N: Oh no!!! D: Bit of drama BUT we got to see some cute Wheatley/Harry there! :D Makes up for it a little...right? 


	8. White Out

A/N: Aaaannnddd we’re back! I am so excited for this story! I actually have all of the really good, juicy and feelsy scenes written out for the most part so now I’m just backtracking and writing everything in the middle! I spent all day yesterday writing this really heart wrenching chapter that comes later and I ended up feeling like I’d spent all day abusing myself. In any case please don’t forget to drop me a comment/kudos and subscribe to the story for more updates like this one in the future!

 

Disclaimer: See previous chapters for full disclaimer.

 

**_GLaDOS Dialogue_ **

_ CHELL Dialogue _

Wheatley Dialogue

 

**_Chapter_ ** **_00111000_ **

 

_ White Out _

 

_ Reboot initiation successful. _

 

_ Rebooting core system in _

 

_ 3... _

 

_ 2... _

 

_ 1. _

 

The first indication that I had come back into the land of the living was the sound of Hermione's sniffles. She'd been crying. Why? Slowly, as my systems geared themselves up, I could pick out other things coming in a few at a time.

 

There was what felt like cloth covering stone beneath my body and Snape's voice whispering out incantations in what sounded like Latin. A surprising lack of bystanders were around. In fact, the area was blessedly empty. At last, my vision came back online and the worried faces of my companions were staring down at me, Hermione's tear-streaked and Snape's pinched in deep concern. 

 

"Chell? Chell, oh Merlin! Are you okay?" The young bookworm began to gasp, her eyes filling with moisture once more as she struggled not to redouble her tears. 

 

Snape helped ease me into a sitting position and it was then that I realized that the cloth that I was laying on was, in fact, his stripped off robes. Beneath he wore a tasteful gray vest over a black button down and slacks. Somehow that surprised me though I wasn't sure why. 

 

There was this nervous disconnect in my mind that was screaming out at the emptiness, trying desperately and failing to make the link to home. 

 

To GLaDOS, the other half of me. 

 

It felt as if I had been cut in half. 

 

A quick scan of my internal processors showed them all functioning as they should, despite the functions that were no longer available to me because of the loss. 

 

_ Loss _ ...

 

The word brought a fresh wave of panic over my nervous system. 

 

My breaths began to come faster and my heart rate began to accelerate as I tried in terror to reach the only thing in my world that made sense right now. But she was gone. Absent. 

 

Error codes and biometric warnings began to flash across the insides of my brain. 

 

_ Error 51: Network Path Not Found. Heart rate acceleration at 110 beats per minute. Error 65: Network Access Denied. Norepinephrine blood levels heightened. Error 500: Internal Server Error. Blood adrenaline levels increased. _

 

Was I...dying? The air was thick and heavy, refusing to come fast enough to satisfy my hungry lungs. Somewhere in the back of my mind, my processors were registering what this was: a panic attack. The primal, animal side of my human brain was in charge now, though, and it had hijacked my nervous system until there was nothing that could be done. 

 

I couldn't manually override my body's basic functions like GLaDOS could. That function was stored on her processors, not mine. 

 

If the awareness of it was available to me, I would have been horrified by the tears filling my emerald eyes. The fear...

 

What if we were never able to connect again? What if GLaDOS couldn't find me? What if she were experiencing this same panic all alone back at Aperture, far underground where I couldn't reach her? 

 

What had I been thinking by leaving?! What if something happened to her?! What if-?!

 

A pair of hands slid over my weeping eyes and a soft body held me close around my middle as if to reassure me that there was some sort of connection here to the physical world. That I wasn't being swallowed up by my own fear. 

 

"Just listen to my voice, Chell. I'm here. You are going to be okay. Don't think about anything else, just listen to my voice." The words were calm, soothing, female. Those words didn't care that their hand was getting wet with my tears. They just kept whispering, drawing me slowly and slowly out of my own head. 

 

"You're okay, Chell. You are in Diagon Alley, remember? Can you smell that? Those are fresh cauldron cakes from the stand nearby. They're sweet, frosted snack cakes that are shaped like cauldrons. Do you feel that breeze? It's warm today. A perfect day for reading out on a patio with a cup of tea, don't you think?" 

 

The emptiness, the loneliness was still there but it wasn't all consuming anymore. The longer she spoke, the further away the terror became until at last my servers were able to kick back in and take over where the fight-or-flight response had kicked them out. 

 

"Breathe in. Breathe out. That's right, Chell. Good. You're doing so well. Now how about that cuppa, hm?"

 

It was Hermione, I realized at last. Somehow, she had calmed me when my own processors had failed to take control. 

 

"I'm going to move my hand, Chell. Are you ready?" She prepared me carefully, soothingly, and I nodded after a deep, steadying breath.

 

There was a shimmering sort of force field around us that I could see behind an even more concerned looking potions professor. The man handed me a strange vial and bid me drink, saying simply, "Calming Draught."

 

It said more for my state of mind than anything that I followed his order without questioning the odd concoction. Within just a few moments, though, I began to feel the effects chasing away the last of that panic. Calming draught, indeed.

 

"What...happened?" I coughed out, scrubbing the last of the moisture away from my face. 

 

“We could ask you that, Mr. Aperture. You came into contact with one of the warding stones for the Alley and it seemed that you had some sort of...reaction.” Snape explained, gesturing back to the innocuous pillar that had felt so warm beneath my palm. 

 

“You had a panic attack after you woke up.” Hermione offered, filling in the blanks in time for me, “You recovered pretty well, though! I'm very impressed." She offered kindly, smiling gently to let me know that she wasn't perturbed by having to give the assistance she had. 

 

A panic attack. Huh. 

 

I leveled her with a serious, weighty stare and gave a nod of gratitude.

 

"Thank you, Hermione. Your help was...incredibly invaluable." Pausing, I prodded at the edges of the absence in my mind delicately, simultaneously trying not too look at it too hard. Observing it too much made the fear start to well back up in my chest all over again.

 

GLaDOS must be tearing Aperture apart in her own fear. I had to get to her. I had to let her know that I wasn't-. Oh, sweet baby Caroline. She probably thought that I was dead. The very real possibility that she could hack a set of nukes flashed through my mind. 

 

Statistical probability of Britain becoming a smoldering pile of rubble without immediate contact stood at an unnerving 46 percent. 

 

"The pillar...I touched it and" I didn't even want to say it, to verbalize it and make it more real than it already was, "my connection to my mother, to our mainframe back at Aperture, broke. It's the first time in almost my entire life that I've been separated from it and my systems did not handle it well." 

 

Snape helped me shakily to my feet, accepting his robe that I passed back to him.

 

"It sounds like the wards for the Alley disrupted your connection. I'm so sorry, Chell! I should've thought-! Oh, Merlin, I'm such a dunce!" That would not be the word I would attribute to the intelligent girl, certainly, "It's the magic! Magic tends to...um, make electronics sort of...explode." She finally got out at last, suddenly looking as if she were rethinking the whole school shopping expedition.

 

Explode?! 

 

No electronics?! My body was literally electronic in many places, my brain most of all! 

 

My stricken expression sent my companion's mind spinning in thought and theorizing as she was wont to do, I'd noticed.

 

"It's odd though. You've said that your brain is partially computer and yet the magic of the alley doesn't seem to affect you. In fact, standing here in the entrance, your connection was only disrupted when you came into contact with the ward stone. It would be fascinating to know if your natural, organic magic has somehow merged with the enhancements in your body as a way of protecting you from the possible reaction of the two."

 

Forget magic and discussions of book. Hypothesizing? Testing? Now she was speaking my language. 

 

First thing was first, though.

 

“Do you think that if I exited the Alley, that the connection would be reestablished?” I prompted, already stepping towards an little used door towards the back of the portkey entry space. 

 

She gave a noncommittal shrug and immediately looked frustrated at herself for it, “It’s possible. It certainly can’t hurt to try.”

 

Try it we did. The moment that I was outside of the wards’ reach, there was a moment of buffering as the signal between us bounced off of a few of Aperture’s satellites. It slammed back into place with a nearly painful jolt. All of the sudden, my mind was in cacophony. GLaDOS's voice was shrieking out for me, her servers nearly overheating with the intensity of her search for me. Signals were bouncing off of every sort of tech it could find to try and triangulate my position and condition. When I finally reached out to her, it was with a shaking string of code that filled her processors with all of the pertinent information she would need.

 

' **_Oh thank God! You're alright_ ** !' She nearly sobbed into my brain, ' **_What happened?! Did they hurt you_ ** ?!' 

 

Oh boy. The wizarding world did not know how much an enraged A.I. could spell extinction for them. Probably for the best. 

 

' _ I'm okay...A little shaken but I'm well. There are wards here, giant force fields designed to protect the alley. They are hindering our connection to one another and causing a disruption. These wards seem to be commonplace in wizarding centers of high population density and Hermione has briefly mentioned as we arrived that Hogwarts also has similar wards. We will not be able to communicate within these areas.' _

 

There was a long strand of thought across our shared brain that reevaluated the entire schooling decision. Unhappily, she came to a long-suffering decision.

 

' **_Very well. Proceed with caution. We will reevaluate Hogwarts when you return. Also let your companions know that should anything happen to you, that they can expect to be held_ ** **_personally_ ** **_responsible._ ** '

 

_ 'Affirmative _ .' I sent back with a tinge of amusement.

 

**_://01100011 01101000 01100101 01101100 01101100//:_ **

Fortunately for me, a lifetime of testing chambers and cybernetic enhancements allowed me to recover quickly. This time, when we re-entered the entryway, I was prepared for the disturbing absence in my brain. The Alley was only moderately busy by the time we arrived. Apparently Harry Potter was a household name and the chances that I would be recognized on a day when the crowds were in full swing. The first order of business was the bank. To say that I was shocked to find the Potters had left me a sizable fortune was a vast understatement. As I loaded up my bags with the currency of the realm, though, there was sickening churning in my gut that I had no right to this money. It had been left by loving parents who had wanted to to provide for Harry Potter’s wellbeing and future. I wasn’t the child that they had loved. I’d long since ceased being Harry Potter. A note was made to find out how we could set up an account for me with Aperture funds. 

The question of a pet was immediately dismissed. It wouldn't last a day back home at the facility. A stop at a local eatery for the tea Hermione had previously spoken of was an...interesting experience. It turns out that a lifetime of surviving on CalorieMate bars and nutrition mixtures left my system unable to handle the rich English food. The venture resulted in an extremely unfortunate series of vomiting and a lifelong hatred of the wretched 'full English'. 

The visit to Ollivander's was by far the most enlightening part of the day. 

We stepped into the dimly lit shop with an air of reverence as if we were stepping into a place of worship. Ollivander himself materialized out from behind a shelf, staring me down with eyes that were far too pearlescent to be completely normal. They gave off a sort of eyeshine reminiscent of a dog's when a light reflects on them. 

No, not a dog. A cat. Ollivander reminded me of a stately old cat. 

“You're late, Mr...Hm.” He blessedly stopped himself before he could get the blasted name Potter out, observing me carefully with those strange eyes. “Yes. Yes, I see now. You've had a very unique life, haven't you, Mr.-?”

“Aperture.” I supplied at his prompting, nearly smashing a chair in alarm as a measuring tape zoomed out at me and independently began taking seemingly absurd measurements. 

Ollivander continued as if I hadn't almost destroyed a piece of furniture. Perhaps it was a common reaction.

"Which is your dominant hand, Mr. Aperture?"

"My left." 

The tape measure began measuring the length of my arm from various angles and diameters immediately. A word from the wand maker and it dropped to the floor like it had never been moving at all. Magic. 

Immediately, the man began passing the magical conduits into my hand one by one. Some he would have me wave, others he snatched out of my hand but the result was all the same.

Nothing happened. 

Nothing at all.

After ten minutes, Hermione began to worry her lip. After fifteen, Snape had a frown that was deepening every moment, with every completely nonreactive wand. 

"Is he...a squib?" The professor ventured hesitantly after some time.

A squib? What was a squib? Some sort of wizarding lingo like 'muggle' or 'portkey'?

Ollivander took a step back to look me up and down, his lens-like eyes narrowing in concentration at the observation. He hummed, tapping his own wand against his crossed arm thoughtfully.

"No. No, he is as magical as you and I but there is...something." The wand maker at last stepped back to his last stack of wands, sending them back to their shelves with a wave of his wand. "Mr. Aperture, is there something different about your body at all? Your left arm, perhaps?" 

Different...? Oh. The realization hit me with the force of a spike plate and suddenly, I felt a little dim. It seemed my separation from GLaDOS may be affecting me cognitively if I overlooked that particular possibility.

“My arm is cybernetic.” At Snape’s confused expression and Ollivander’s polite ‘ah’, I elaborated, “It’s electronic. Fake. I, erm,  _ lost _ it when I was younger.”

“Oh! That explains it then!” Hermione shouted excitedly, clapping her hands at the prospect of a mystery solved, “Chell, it’s like the ward stone! It disrupted your connection! It’s not a stretch that your cybernetics could also disrupt the natural flow of magic in your body!” 

Well that did have a strange sort of logic to it. The wand master nodded along with her theory.

“That may be. I think there may be a second issue hindering a wand choosing you as it’s owner, Mr. Aperture. You see, the reason that children initially come in for their wands at the age of eleven is because their minds and therefore their magics are still free and unhindered. You, however, your mind isn’t your own...is it?” 

A slow narrowing of my emerald eyes and my companions shared a sideways glance. How could he know that? Obviously wizards could be mind readers too. Obviously the answer was simply, ‘Magic’. It was beginning to chafe and irritate my scientifically-geared mind how frequently that ‘magic’ was just the answer for every question that came up. 

“No.” I ground out, aggravation spiking. 

He nodded sagely, “I thought not. And I imagine that the one you share your...mental space with is significantly older?” And answer to the affirmative, grudgingly. I was not willing to give out any more information on my mother than necessary. “All of these wands are made for younger wizards with less  _ life experience _ , to put it kindly. None of these will bond with you even if you were channeling magic properly. You need a wand for an adult, one that has already matured rather than a young wand that still has growing to do. Fortunately, I keep such a supply on hand for adults whose first wands were broken or lost to tragedy.”

He drew forth a supply of about eighteen wands whose boxes were coated with a fine layer of dust. The wands within had been cared for, lovingly polished and handled with care. 

Kind of how GLaDOS had done with me. 

She had taken a child who had been cast off and lost and polished me up, made me her own. She had handled me with love and now here I was. Whole in mind and heart if not in body. 

“I suggest trying with your right hand this time.”

His words were barely even acknowledged. When I tried a wand this time, there was the feel of energy there making a connection with the conduit. It was discarded though. The next wand shattered a window. The third sent a box of wands careening into the floor. It was the seventh wand that finally, finally reacted positively. 

Sort of.

An almost sullen spray of white sparks spewed forth, lighting the dim room weakly. Hermione and Snape stood by my side staring at the thing incredulously. It was a little...underwhelming. Ollivander cleared his throat, almost embarrassed though whether it was for me, the wand or himself I wasn't sure. 

"Well...that's the wand for you, that's for sure. That's thing about these adult wands though. They've been bonded to a prior owner, you see and they aren't always terribly...happy about being passed to someone new. It's chosen but it isn't very pleased about it. They are sentient, you know. These older ones can be a little sullen sometimes."

Why was nothing regarding magic that was simple and easily explained? Organic quantum field manipulation. Instantaneous international transportation. Magical conduits with...souls? My very being cringed at the impreciseness of it all. 

And now I was stuck with an ill-tempered wand. Perfect. 

"Mr. Ollivander, you said these wands were pre-owned. Who was the first owner of this wand?" Hermione piped in curiously.

She looked like she would desperately like to be taking notes on all of this. 

The odd man looked at the wand heavily for a long moment before his answer came and turned my world upside down all over again.

"Not everyone who is new to our world excels as much as you yourself have, Ms. Granger. That wand was owned by a young man who, much like you yourself, Mr. Aperture, seemed to struggle to marry his knowledge of science with the new wizarding world he was just discovering. INevitably, he ended up returning his wand after only a few years at Hogwarts in order to pursue an education in the muggle world. He never did return to the wizarding world. A disappointment, surely. He was very bright. His name was...let's see. Yes, I remember. It was Doug. Doug Rattman."

_ Doug Rattman _ .

A hot shoot of flames. 

The last screams of a euthanized human being. 

“I’m so sorry Chell…” 

Emotionally exhausted, tired sobs. 

“I’m so sorry…”

How morbidly fascinating that the one human being that I had ever made a promise to, my one friend as a child, was the one person who had left this wand behind. This wand that would later become my own. Doug Rattman had unknowingly shaped who I was today almost as much as GLaDOS herself had. It seemed only right that his wand would find it’s way to me, however unwilling the wand itself was. Could the thing sense its former owner’s murderer in me? Anything was apparently possible where magic was concerned.

“He worked at...my home. He’s dead now.” Was all that slipped out of my mouth, soft as a sigh but just loud enough that Ollivander caught it. 

He sighed, eyes dimming just slightly.

“I’m sorry to hear that. He was a very troubled young man but a kind one. The world is lesser for his absence.” Ollivander straightened himself up and drew himself over behind the counter once more, “I hope that his wand serves you better than it did him. It’s a strong combination, you know. Holly wood with a phoenix feather core. Strange that the phoenix who gave the feather gave only one other. The core that resides in the Dark Lord’s own wand.” 

‘Would wonders never cease?’ I pondered dryly. 

We paid for my wand out of the money from the Potter vault and made our way from the store. No matter how fascinating and scientifically revolutionary, the end of my first stint in the wizarding world could have come soon enough.

  
  


**_://01100011 01101000 01100101 01101100 01101100//:_ **

_ “ _ Can I ask, and feel free to not answer if you don’t want to. Free country and all,...why you aren't taking me with you? I mean- Fact Core I sort of get with the running experiments and all. But Turret Core? I would understand even Virgil or one of his minions but, Turret? Seriously, come ooonnnn. She's an airhead. All she's got going for her is nice big pair of guns. Complete floozy if you ask me.”  He prattled on as he was prone to do when anxious. It occurred to me them how much time Wheatley spent being anxious. In a place dominated by an enormous A.I. I could see how it might be disconcerting to be so small, in comparison, to a core already so geared for nervousness. 

I held out a kind hand, smiling sadly at my core as I packed my few possessions into a nice leather briefcase that I'd found in one of the old cubicles. Wheatley alighted on the outstretched limb with a desolate hum. 

“You know I would if it was possible, Wheat. I would love nothing more. But the wizards are already throwing a fit about me taking Fact Core. I need him for the experiment data because the magic hinders my connection back to the mainframe and GLaDOS is insisting that Turret Core go for protection. She doesn’t trust the wizards.” 

It wasn’t just that.

“ I don’t trust them either. ” He groused, allowing me to pull him close into my arms and lay a soft kiss onto the top of his head. 

We settled down on the bed of my pod, sitting in a crossed-leg pose with the core on my lap nd his gaze firmly fixed on me. 

“You know I love you, don't you?” 

His gaze turned warm and his internal mechanisms whirred happily. There was a warmth in my chest that I had always associated with Wheatley.

Fondness. Affection. Love. 

He nodded his eye affirmatively. 

"Something happened today that was...surprising and strange. I haven't told GLaDOS yet."

His eye widened in amazement, not only that it was possible to keep something from the A.I. that I shared a brain with but that I would share it with him before my mother. 

" What happened ?"

Winding my fingers over the breaks, bumps and divots on his body, the memory of my visit to Ollivander's came up. 

"The wand that I ended up with had a previous owner. It was the scientist. The human. Doug Rattman. He was a wizard all along. I think...I think he might have known me." 

As the words came out, the memory of the man himself came forth and the taste of the truth of it burned on my tongue. His expression when he’d first seen me had been stricken. I remember that it had struck me as unusual because he had stared at the scar on my forehead and turned so pale that I thought he may be dying. 

‘ _ No...Not you. Anyone, but not you… _ ’ He had whispered desperately.

At the time, I had just assumed that he was referring to me being an extension of the one who would ultimately kill him. Now, though, the truth was clear. He had recognized my supposedly famous scar and eyes. He had recognized Harry Potter. 

“There was a wizard in Aperture this whole time.” 

The very idea was completely astonishing! Wheatley’s pupil had gotten very small in alarm and he suddenly looked as if he wasn’t sure being the first to know that was a good idea. 

“ Maybe that was how he survived the, eh,  _ neurotoxin temper tantrum _ ? ” 

“Maybe so…” It certainly seemed plausible. There appeared to be very little if any limitations when it came to magic. I couldn’t wait to test that out. Could magic function in a vacuum? Did it work on the cellular level? Could you cast a spell on cells themselves? The questions were limitless. It wasn’t a stretch to assume that Rattman had found a way to use magic to avoid the gas and GLaDOS’s gaze. 

The question was...would his fate be mine,only in reverse? Would I too decide to abandon magic in favor of science? Would I spend my life hiding away from wizards rather than rogue A.I.s? Something anxious gnawed away at my insides that simply wouldn't be shaken. All that I could do was pull Wheatley closer and enjoy the time we had together,while we could. 

Tomorrow would be another day.

A/N: I hope all of you enjoyed the chapter and please don’t forget to comment/favorite/subscribe to the story to get updates! :)

  
  



	9. Dual Pit Experience

A/N: Ahh!! Getting excited now! How did all of you enjoy Chell’s trip to Ollivanders? XD Please don't forget to comment/favorite/subscribe to the story to get updates! :) I do love hearing what you liked or were curious about!

 

Disclaimer: See previous chapter for disclaimer. I'm too tired for legal junk today.

 

**_GLaDOS’s Dialogue_ **

_ CHELL’s Dialogue _

Wheatley’s Dialogue

 

**_Chapter_ ** **_00111001_ **

 

_ Dual-Pit Experience _

 

The days leading up to September first seemed to pass in record time, much to my dismay. Much of them were spent running screening and tests on the various school supplies that I had acquired in the alley (much of it completely unrelated to any actual school necessities). While I did pass off the idea of getting a pet, I had stopped in the Eyelops Magical Menagerie and bought several of the large black rats that had been skipping rope there. GLaDOS had been ecstatic at the idea of having literal magical lab rats. The varying potions supplies had been another golden find and as I bought three of the student kits as well as some extra potions supplies that had sounded interesting, Snape had looked on with an expression of dread.

 

Troll nails and boomslang skin? What in the name of Cave Johnson was a boomslang? 

 

So far, DNA tests had been inconclusive on that question.

 

Hermione had been bursting with questions herself on what sort of experiments we ran and were planning to run during my stay in the wizarding world. It appeared that I had found a kindred spirit in her. Perhaps she would be willing to help introduce me to the finer nuances of wizarding culture

 

GLaDOS was having me run some new chambers before I left, so it was with a keen eye that I surveyed the room carefully before leaping in, keeping a steady commentary with her as I did. 

 

‘ **_The rats have displayed an increased intelligence far exceeding any other for their species. Thus far, results are inconclusive as to whether the difference is due to magic or just specific purposeful breeding to that effect._ ** ’ 

 

‘ _ Interesting. Blood tests and anatomical studies show no difference I see. Are the cellular tests still running _ ?’

 

**_‘Estimated time of completed is another 3.2 hours.’_ **

 

If one were to enter the Main A.I. Chamber then, it looked like a library had met a band stand. There were magical books piled all around in neat stacks, another six arranged around the A.I, herself on stands, open for her perusal. I certainly wasn’t going to complain. The more she read and took in, the more knowledge that was available to me personally. I had her working through the second year material now. At least I could have an intellectual knowledge of the material I’d missed out on even if I had no practical experience with them. It wouldn’t mean that I could actually cast them of course but I would at least recognize the spell if it was used against me.  

 

Alright, time to do some science. 

 

Observation completed, I prepared myself. Glitchey stood by silently, ready to begin the count, cowed into silence by GLaDOS’s presence via monitor in the chamber. 

 

‘ _ Count beginning in 3, 2, 1 _ .’

 

I took off at a running leap, shooting a portal into the great span ahead.

 

**_://01100011 01101000 01100101 01101100 01101100//:_ **

 

‘ **_I still don't think this is a good idea._ ** ’

 

"I agree. The turrets should be placed on the other side of the chamber. Contrary to what you seem to think, the goal of testing  _ isn’t _ to actually kill the subject."

 

She gave a very robotic eye roll.

 

‘ **_That is not what I was talking about and you know it. Though I will take your opinions under advisement._ ** ’ Sure enough after a few nanoseconds of running mental simulations and calculations, she moved the turrets.  **_‘Electronics and technology short out around magicals. Unless you've failed to notice, vital parts of your anatomy are cybernetic implants. Last time I checked, humans needed their lungs to perform basic functions._ ** ’

 

That was the thing though. If I were a wizard, then why did my implants take at all? Why didn't the magic in my body reject them outright? Was it because I was so young when they were installed or because I wasn't a practicing wizard? I didn't believe it was the latter. If it were, my implants would have exploded when my wand reacted and sprayed out sparks at Ollivander's. Neither were my actual body functions affected when my connection to the mainframe was interrupted. 

 

Perhaps because I received them as a child, my innate magic was able to merge slowly with the implants as my body grew, just as a cochlear implant was more effective the younger the recipient. I shared this theory with the A.I. and tentatively, she admitted that though it seemed like a viable hypothesis, it required more research. Research that could only be done at Hogwarts. 

 

She sighed, annoyed with the data running through her system. There was something sad within that sound and it made my heart grieve just a little.

 

' **_I have a scan of your brain backed up in case you exploded and/or are murdered by wand-wielding wizards.'_ **

 

That was...really sweet, as far as GLaDOS went.

 

"I'll miss you too..." 

 

More than anything.

 

**_://01100011 01101000 01100101 01101100 01101100//:_ **

 

That night, I lay awake after Wheatley had gone to sleep mode staring at the wand that had so reluctantly chosen me. It’s former owner weighed heavily on my mind and I didn’t know why.

 

‘ _ Who is the lady that you paint?’  _

 

_ He had smiled up at the graffitied painting of the orange clad sleeping woman on the the wall. She was pretty. Brunette hair and always painting with a sort of knowing tilt to her lips. She was almost always sleeping though. The jumpsuit said that she was an Aperture test subject. Was she still here down below or had she already failed the tests and died or shoved into a companion cube? _

 

_ ‘She is you. She is Chell and she is going to save us.’ _

 

I still had no idea what he had meant back then. His comments had been put out of my mind as the strangeness of a schizophrenic who had spent years alone to develop a fixation on one of the frozen subjects. Now I was questioning everything I ever assumed to be true. 

 

I couldn’t stop thinking of him in the box. The sound of his soft cries emanating from inside the storage cube stuck with me like no other had before. There was something intimate about the connection we had through our shared wand. We were linked now through space and time on a magical level. It couldn’t be coincidence, could it? That it had just so happened to be Doug Rattman’s wand that had chosen me. Could the wand, sentient as it was, know that its previous owner had known me, had made a lifelong impression on me? 

 

Even long after his death, Doug Rattman haunted the halls and chambers Aperture Science.

  
  


**_://01100011 01101000 01100101 01101100 01101100//:_ **

  
  


The day came at last for me to leave and see just what the wizarding world had in store. The ministry issued portkey had been delivered by an owl two days ago. An owl who had looked rather alarmed at the tall, single-eyed robot that had collected the post in my place. 

 

I spent the last day almost entirely with GLaDOS, soothing her concerns and irritations alike. I even slept up in the groove in her chassis when the need finally took me just like I had when very small.  It was hours before leaving when my body awoke. 

 

The entire facility was brewing with an undercurrent of discontented anxiety. The robots, the rooms, even the cubes, felt...off. As if they were all waiting for some catastrophe to befall them. I spent time with all of my favorite robots. 

 

Virgil and Glitchey. Oracle Turret and Music Core. Humor Core and Sergeant. Even Omnicore.

 

Somehow, there was this pervading, illogical fear within me that if they didn’t warrant a visit before I left that I may never see them again. In my head, I knew that it was a ridiculous notion, but the feeling wouldn't be shaken. 

 

GLaDOS did not want me to leave. Something inside of her, something she tried to disregard and ignore, cringed away from the very idea. Wheatley was practically apoplectic, as depressed as a robot could be. We said our goodbyes in the Main A.I. Chamber, the lift carrying up to what could end up being the next stage of my life.

 

Hermione met me in between platforms 9 and 10. The bustling crowd was more than had been at Diagon Alley and the difference floored me for a moment. So many people in the same space, moving around and enjoying their daily lives. It was surreal to see something that would have been ordinary for me in another life be so incredibly foreign. I’d never seen so many people in my life. Surely the cacophony of the station would have swept me up if it weren't for Hermione calling my name.

 

“Chell! You made it!” 

 

Her shouts drew a few stares but not as many as my stark white Aperture Science jumpsuit underneath the long black robe that I had procured at Madame Malkins. Hermione was quick to cast what she described as a Notice-Me-Not charm.  A scarlet tint colored her face.

 

“Um, Chell, what are you- Did you not get a set of school uniforms. With, um, shirts? And pants?”

 

Ah. The human clothes. Loose and impractical things. 

 

“I did but opted to go with my own. Terribly inefficient things if you ask me.”

 

“I see. Well...let's just do up that robe, shall we? Oh, those are very interesting boots!” She perked up, checking out the sleek longfall boots that were, in all fairness, the only shoes I owned. They had always been the only ones that mattered and thus the only ones I'd needed. 

 

"Thank you."

 

I was more interested in knowing how the wizards had their own train in the middle of the highly populated King's Cross Station with the nonmagicals none the wiser! They had an entire platform that shouldn't exist! Magic! She was beginning to explain the platform barrier and how it worked when a grating, nasally voice shouted out at us from behind.

 

"Hey Granger! Still collecting strays, I see!" 

 

Her entire body stiffened, her teeth grinding together in her jaw. 

 

The young man that approached walked with an exaggerated swagger that I'm sure he thought made him look superior, judging by the nasty smirk on his freckled face. It really only made him look as if he had a massively uncomfortable hemorrhoid. His bright ginger hair cast his pale face into the unhealthy pallor of someone who spent too much time away from the sun. 

 

I'd know. My own sable locks made my skin practically translucent, the blue veins visible beneath in many places. My skin had never seen the sun in my whole life until now. The contrast made my eyes disarming and eerie to people, I was told. Thank Johnson that GLaDOS had thought to have me put on and bring the Aperture Science UV Reflecting Gel. Fortunately, we’d eventually worked out the kinks so the gel had stopped glowing any time light hit it. It would have been pretty awkward to be sitting in class, glowing like a human lamp. 

 

Hermione glared at the intruder with a look of such fierce loathing that it surprised me to see from the girl. A long time rival perhaps? 

 

"Weasley. Where's the rest of the family? I'm sure Fred and George would be THRILLED to see you harassing me again. Oh, sorry, you told your mum you just 'talked' to me last time, didn't you? Big man having to lie to your mother to get out of trouble." 

 

Harassing, hm? It made me reevaluate the boy and not in a kind light. Sure, I hadn't known Hermione for very long but being raised by only a mother had taught me to respect independence and intelligent strength within the fairer sex. 

 

After all, just because they were fairer didn't mean they wouldn't drop you into an incinerator. 

 

I turned to level the full weight of my gaze on the ingrate in question. I'm not sure what it was that Weasley saw when he got a good look at me but whatever it was made the child flush as red as his hair in anger. His blue eyes narrowed at her furiously. 

 

"Collecting pretty boys now, Granger? Not your usual fare. I thought you and Loony were swooning for each other. Decided to try on an actual man for a chance? Well, if you are so desperate for a date I suppose that you could try me on for size. I have to warn you though. May be a bit more man than a girl like you can handle." He oozed with a self-gratifying grin. 

 

My companion turned green at the very idea.

 

"Ronald-" 

 

"That's it, sweetheart. I love it when you say my name."

 

"-I've seen flobberworms with more attraction than you. And more where it counts too." She bit back.

 

She left him stammering in enraged embarrassment as a group of similarly colored red heads approached and a set of twins heard the sly comment. We slipped through the platform barrier to the sounds of two sets of uproarious guffaws and young female voice responding with, "You deserved every bit of that, Ronald."

 

A strange sliding, waterfall sensation covered my body leaving the urge to scrub my arms to check for residue behind.  

 

Once free of the barrier, I leveled my companion with a heavy frown.

 

"Friend of yours?" 

 

A disgusted snort and an uncomfortable shifting.

 

"Tormentor is more like. He and his goons made me fall down a set of stairs last year. Hard to imagine that a worm like that came from such a decent family. His sister, Ginny, is such a sweet girl and the twins got a rather spectacular revenge on my behalf after the staircase incident." She said it a if she were stating facts rather than what could have been a grievous injury. It was clear that it had affected her deeply and she didn't want to discuss it in detail. I made a note to keep an eye on Mr. Weasley in the future. 

 

A/N: Soooooo, our first glimpse of Ron! What do you think about it? Please comment and like/subscribe to get chapter updates!


	10. Lunacy

A/N: Okie dokie! A new chapter and Chell is going to meet a new friend! Read on to find out!

Disclaimer: All properties and rights belong to J.K. Rowling, Valve and Harry101UK!

**_GLaDOS’s Dialogue_ **   
_CHELL’s Dialogue_   
_Wheatley’s Dialogue_

  
**_Chapter 00110001 00110000_ **

_Lunacy_

 

                        The Hogwarts Express was quite the sight to behold. I'm sure to some it probably would be considered a magnificent feat of human ingenuity but with the superior engineering that had been poured into GLaDOS, a train simply couldn't compare. The scientists at Aperture hadn't even had the benefit of magic to put her together! Comparatively, the Hogwarts Express just wasn't that impressive.

                        The platform was filled with the cacophony of an entire school of children and their families all saying their last goodbyes and waving out of train windows. It was the first time I'd witnessed wizarding families together and here in one place, I was witnessing all different tiers of wizarding society. It was clear, just as it had been in Diagon Alley, who the upper crust were and who were in the bottom rung. The Weasley Family, I noticed, fell into that lower rung. There was a stoic, obviously wealthy family judging by their dress and mannerisms, who stood not far off, saying their goodbyes in a hushed and formal manner.

Hermione, I noticed, was without parental company.

“Hermione, are you an orphan?”

                          Her stare at me was dumbfounded, her mouth actually hanging open in alarm.

"An orphan? Why on earth would you think that?" She asked with surprise but not anger. She was genuinely curious.

"Everyone else is here with their parental units but not you. You waited to collect me all alone instead. This seems like ones of those strange hallmark moments that humans cherish so I concluded that you may not have parents if they weren't here to collect the memory of sending you off to school." My explanation was straight to the point, my eyes continuing to observe those around us rather than focus on her startled face.

                          Somehow, her expression had made me feel...uncomfortable. Like I had missed some obvious social cue or nuance that I wasn't aware of.

"No, my parents and I had a less public send off back at home." She heaved a sigh that sounded almost disappointed.

"Something you have to understand about the wizarding world is...well, they're kind of backwards thinking. To a lot of people, blood status is a big deal. Blood status being a measure of how magical your family is, more or less. In some of the older families, the practice of eugenics is a tightly held virtue. My parents are completely nonmagical and that sort of...threatens some of the so called 'purebloods'. I decided after my first year that coming alone was the best way to stay under their radar."

                          Huh. Eugenics, eh? A set of beliefs and practices that aims at improving the genetic quality of a human population. I tasted the definition of it on my processors. Taken too far, such things can only contribute to inbreeding and the mutation and degradation of via DNA. It would be interesting to learn more about this phenomenon in a magical population and see if the same problems that held in nonmagical inbreeding were also consistent in wizards.

"My mother and I did the same." I added and the admission, the odd camaraderie, seemed to comfort her.

                           And there it was. I could feel the connection with GLaDOS disappearing out of existence as we stood there on the platform. She kept reaching out, reaching out, getting weaker and weaker until there was nothing connecting me back to home any more. It was a slow fade this time rather than the sudden disconnect that I'd felt in the Alley.

This time I was ready for it.

The panic set in but this time not as strong as the first. I could withstand it. Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out.

                           The train whistle blew, signalling the five minutes before departure. The goodbyes around us became more fervent as Hermione dragged me towards the steam engine quickly, muttering about seats and a compartment.

We stopped in front of a compartment towards the back, ignoring the press of students going past with trunks and a host of angry, noisy pets. Hermione looked as if she were sort of waffling back and forth on whether to reveal some piece of information or not. Finally, she settled on a decision.

“Listen, there’s something you need to know about my friend Luna…”

                          Oh? Through the opaque glass of the compartment, I could see the form of a small female silhouetted against the light of the window.

“She, erm, well...She believes she’s a sort of...moon deity or something.” Her cheeks pinked a little and she began toying lightly with the hem of her sleeve. Was she afraid? No, not quite. Maybe this was called embarrassment. Nonetheless, it couldn’t stop the baffled expression from sitting like lead on my face.

“Come again?”

“Well, a moon princess to be exact. Really and intensely believes it and honestly, I’m not sure that she’s all there. But do me a favor and just please, be nice to her? No one ever is...nice to her, I mean.”

                           The way she said it struck a chord in me. It reminded me of my Wheatley, all alone back home now with no one to defend him against that casual cruelty leveled at him every minute of the day. No one to make it all worth it. I gave her a soft smile that appeared to reassure her.

“I would be happy to meet your friend, Hermione. No matter how strange she may be.”

With that, she sighed and opened the compartment door.

                           The only occupant was a pretty young girl sitting within. Her hair fell in soft waves and wisps around her face, the rest up in an artfully yet somehow casually twisted braid on her head. Eyes the color of shimmering silvery blue reflected things eerily in a way that normal eyes just shouldn’t. When she turned to meet our gaze, the light hit them just right in a way that made the light reflect back as if she were a cat or a pool of water. It happened quickly, so quickly that a regular human would have missed it. No doubt there were many that sensed the odd strangeness that hung around the pretty girl like a cloud, though. Like how a mouse senses a predator near. Humans were funny that way.

Her skin was silky and milky smooth, brought out more by the startling shade of bright green on her pair of avocado earrings. Her smile was fond but distant, as if she were seeing multiple things all at once.

                          “Hello, Luna! I’m sorry I missed you in Diagon! Did you get the package I sent you?” Hermione strode into the compartment, happily chattering away to the quietly nodding girl.

“Oh, Athena.” Athena? Hermione cast me a fond smile and shrug. It was clearly a recurring piece of the two’s relationship. “Yes, thank you. I loved the music box. I put it on a chain so I could wear it always.” Her smile widened and she pulled from her loose, flowing blue dress a necklace on the end of which was a star shaped brooch. From the back of it was a winding key. Her eyes turned to me at last.

“Hello, Chell. Hermione has told me a lot about you. She envies your life and how your family are all robots. It is quite fascinating.” Luna tilted her head to the side, observing me intensely for a long moment. "No, not Chell. You are Asteráki. Yes. Asteráki."

                           Asteráki? My processors began to circulate, to determine if there was some sort of sense to the word she had attributed to me.

Asteráki. Greek for little star.

It seemed that Luna was in the habit of attributing nicknames of a sort to each person she met. As far as nicknames went, there were far worse things to be called, I supposed.

' _Um, CHELL, not to interrupt the meet and greet but...could we come out of this cage now?_ ' A voice came from beneath the sheet covering the overlarge owl cage on top of my trunk.

                          Hermione's eyes lit with a devilish gleam and I had barely pulled the cage into the compartment before the sheet was torn away to reveal two cores stuffed into the wire container.

Fact Core’s eye betrayed his annoyance.

‘ _Fact: This is humiliating_.’

Turret Core let out a giggle, ‘ _Glorious freedom_!’

                          My companion's wide gaze was practically filled with stars as she stared at the two trapped, floating androids before her. If I didn't know her to be completely human, I might have thought she wanted to eat them. Hermione was overtaken by a drive much stronger than the need for food, though. It was the hunger for knowledge that was consuming her.

Raising an eyebrow at the now nervous looking cores, I lifted the cage so that they might claim their freedom. The two zipped up into the air faster than usual as if afraid the young woman might try to grab one of them.

"This is Fact Core," The purple-eyed sphere gave a nod, "And Turret Core."

‘ _Hi hi hi!_ ’ Turret sang happily.

Luna seemed completely unperturbed by the androids in her midst.

                      "Oh! Hello!" My more excitable friend stated, waving at the cores joyfully. No doubt she'd just realized they would be with me all year and she would have next to unfettered access to them for questioning, "And who was the nice core we met back at Aperture? What was his name? The two of you seemed close."

It took only a blip of processing speed to figure out what she was referring to. We were all settling in now, Luna even pulling out a peculiar looking magazine.

"Oh. That was Wheatley. He's my partner." The information seemed to go over Hermione's head as she made a small 'ah' sound. Her friend's eyebrows shot skyward, however.

“So are Fact Core and Turret Core your partners too?”

                      A pin could have dropped in the room and it would have sounded deafening. Fact Core’s eye dilated in alarm and he backed up mid-air, alarmed at the question. My defensive core’s eye turned to the side, looking at the girl sideways.

‘ _Oh my_.’ She said simply, eye not budging from the young Gryffindor.

Fact Core was still staring at her as if she had begun shouting obscenities at him in the middle of a polite conversation. I noticed Luna’s mouth twisting into a grin behind her copy of the Quibbler and she raised the newspaper higher in front of her face to cover her reddening cheeks.

“What?” Still scrambled from the...episode earlier and the odd change of environment, it didn’t occur to me what exactly she was asking at first.

“You know, you and Wheatley are partners in Aperture. Fact Core and Turret Core are with you now to attend Hogwarts, so are they also your partners?” She clarified, frowning as my own expression became as stunned as my companions’.

                      There was a moment of uncomfortable silence between all of us while I sat, trying to decide how best to proceed. My experience with situations like this one and with humans in general were very limited. How frank should I be? Should I gloss over the extent of Wheatley and my relationship? Would honesty hurt my slowly growing relationship with Luna and Hermione if they found out that my beloved was a round, floating android?

Daintily, the young Ravenclaw took a moment to carefully fold her Quibbler into her lap, making sure not to crease the paper. At last, Luna looked up from the newsprint to stare squarely at her befuddled friend.

“They aren’t that kind of partners, Hermione. Chell and Wheatley are lovers.”

Hermione’s face fell into a surprised expression of understanding. I gave her a sympathetic smile and lifted a single shoulder in a shrug.

                     A swift knock resounded at the door. Fact Core and Turret Core had barely enough time to zoom up to the rounded ceiling before the door slid open to reveal a tall teen with a shock of smoothed back blonde hair and a pair of sharp grey eyes that took note of everything in the room from the gently humming Luna to my strange-looking longfall boots. He said nothing about either. I remembered seeing him at the train platform. He was the son of the blonde wealthy couple that had been giving their stiff and formal goodbyes.

                     He said nothing about either me or Luna but instead turned to Hermione with an expression that was blank and all business.

"Granger. I see you've collected a new...friend. Do you have the usual?"

Hermione's face had fallen into the same closed off sort of expression gave him a nod of assent.

"Of course. As promised." She said shrewdly, retrieving a flat brown shipping package stripped of the labels and any identifying markers, "And you?"

"Of course."

                      The young man pulled a small bag from within his crisp, layered black robes that clinked with the sound of coins within. The two exchanged the suspicious packages with an air of finality. He gave a last nod of approval, slipping the thin box into his robes.

"As always, it was a pleasure doing business with you, Granger."

"And you as well, Draco."

At last the odd confrontation was over and the compartment slid closed again.

                      Hermione sat back down into the soft cushions of the seat, counting out a series of the large round galleons and giving a pleased hum at her earnings. Without even looking up at me, knowing the question that was brimming in my mind, she smirked with a shrug.

"Apparently, the young Malfoy has a taste for Muggle rock bands and his friends are quickly following suit discreetly beneath their parent's noses. There's become quite a lucrative market for it at Hogwarts and I've been taking advantage of it. It does add a nice padding to my college fund and my parents don't mind sending me things as long as I don't get in trouble and don't ask for anything too unsavory."

Huh.

"Clever." Was my impressed response. Who would have guessed that rule-loving, honest Hermione Granger was running a school blackmarket for things from the muggle world. She smiled happily at the compliment.

"Thank you." Her attention turned to Luna as well as me and she lifted the bag of money, shaking it with a wink, "Snacks from the trolley? My treat!"

                       The sky had begun to sink below the horizon sometime during the train ride, the sky bleeding into a series of colors that I had never witnessed before. Never had I seen a sunset. It was amazing how quickly the sun fell once it began. Our compartment had fallen into silence so we could appreciate another first for me in humble quiet. The horizon had darkened and night had fallen by the time we came to a stop in the small station. The inside of the train was a blur of commotion: excited voices, hungry bellies and last minute dressing. The excitement was nothing compared to,what awaited me outside. I suppose the poor man suffering from gigantism should have warranted a second look but my attention was drawn elsewhere.

                        Up above, in the sky, twinkled one hundred million tiny stars. Like diamonds on a sheet of black velvet. My body had stopped in the middle of the crowd without my knowledge.

How could such beauty have existed this whole time and I had never known it? Sure, of course I knew what stars were on an intellectual level. I knew their makeup and compositions and lifecycles and types.

But never had I seen them for myself, only the metal ceilings of the enrichment center. For so long, my whole world had been walls. This whole situation with the wizards was beginning to show me all that I'd been missing out on.

                        “Chell? Are you alright?” My bookish friend interrupted my thoughts softly, glaring at a snobbish Slytherin who nearly bumped into us from behind.

"I just..." My throat was tight with emotion. For the first time in all of my life, I felt as though I had been denied something precious living my sequestered life within the facility. There was a sense of...grief? Loss? Anger? Maybe all of them. Maybe none. It was something indescribable. Undefinable. Something sad.

"It's my first time seeing stars."

Hermione's face crumbled into something despairing, pitying. Luna, however, smiled wide and true.

                       "It feels like a baptism, doesn't it?" Her eyes turned from me to look up at the celestial body for which she was named. For the premier time that we had known one another, her gaze no longer had that look of seeing multiple visions at once.

She appeared focused and clear. She looked...how I felt.

Equal parts grieving and just a little bit lonely. As if she were missing something precious and was just aware enough of it to mourn its loss.

Her description was eloquent, poignant and, above all, accurate.

"Yes." I breathed out into the cool night air, "It does."

“Mars is bright tonight. Don't you think?”

“It is.”


	11. High Five

A/N: Ermager. So late. So much writing today. But two chapter in one day. *exhaustedly throws both fists in the air in victory*

 

Disclaimer: Too tired. Oh my GLaDOS, check the other chapters. Not writing this again.

 

**_Chapter 00110001 00110001_ **

_ High Five _

 

                           Massive doors half the size of the Animal King opened as if they were dust being blown away. Professor McGonagall gave a nod and with a quick and efficient stride, led us forward into the Hogwarts inner sanctum. I had barely heard her speech to the first years in the midst of trying to process everything and anything. The loss of Luna and Hermione and my side was...vaguely troubling. 

I was in a magic school for wizards.

Wizards are real. Magic is real.

Maybe unicorns and dragons were real too. Why not, after all? If wizards were, who knew what else was out there.

I felt like a conspiracy nut, except the conspiracy was staring me in the face and waving at me from a picture frame.

Moving, sentient paintings. My world was imploding like a star gone supernova. 

                             The first thing that I noticed about the hall we were led into was its massive size. Pillars rose on the edge of the room, rising higher and higher into a ceiling that had a holographic image of what I now knew the night sky looked like outside. 

The glint of stars arrested me all over again. It was a battle not to stop and stare at them once more, appreciate the beauty that so many passed beneath every day and never thought twice about. 

                              The second thing that caught my eye was the sheer  _ number _ of human teenagers all in one place. And all of them capable of the endless possibilities that defined magic! Astonishing! It was hard sometimes to remember that I too could perform such feats of amazement. That I was human, a wizard like them and not an android like GLaDOS. Truthfully, I still wasn’t sure that the thought was one that sat well with me. I didn’t know humans, didn’t understand their social rules and cues. I didn’t even like most of them. 

They were all staring. Whispering. 

                             I was the tallest and the oldest of the new students, the rest being small eleven years olds standing nervously around me beneath the stares of hundreds of their peers. It felt...strange. Unable to define the odd squirming sensation in my stomach, I pushed it to the side in favor of running calculations and observations on the situation thus far. 

The students were segregated by color into separate tables spread across the room. No surprise there. Luna and Hermione had made sure that I was informed about the upcoming sorting and the four houses of Hogwarts. They did  _ not _ inform me that a tattered hat would suddenly rip open and start shrieking what couldn’t  _ possibly _ be considered music from the tear. My sense of pitch and tune and  **_musical decency_ ** had never been so thusly offended in my life. 

                           My face was pulled in an expression of disgust that would not be contained. A girl nearest me at a table, the red headed Weasley girl, giggled and mouthed at me ‘Terrible, isn’t it?’. Truer words had never been uttered. The song thankfully ended quickly and soon, one by one, students were being called up to the stool in alphabetical order. The 'A's past rapidly and I gave Dumbledore a seething, suspicious look up at the head table where the Headmaster and professors congregated. His only response was a twinkly-eyed raising of his glass.

The 'P's came. And went.

                           There was an angry sort of simmering resentment stirring inside of me for the old man. I got the feeling that I was about to be made a spectacle of. If anything hadn't made it clear enough before then this underscored it. Dumbledore stood in his seat once I was the only student remaining to be sorted, drawing the eye of every soul in the room. 

"Students and faculty! I have the pleasure of introducing a new student to our school tonight! He is joining us from America and I have high hopes that you will make him feel very welcome. Please welcome Chell Aperture!" My suspicions heightened as a polite applause scattered throughout the room and McGonagall beckoned me forward. I sat down tentatively. 

Just before the hat descended on my head, he let out a beaming smile and added, "You may better know him as Harry Potter." 

I didn't know magic. I didn't know wizards. I did know one thing above all others though.

Albus Dumbledore was not my friend.

                          The magic of the Sorting Hat blocked the sudden shocked outcry from the audience. 

There was the feeling of something warm suddenly slithering softly through my mind, quietly and nearly below detection. 

For a normal human. I hadn't been a normal human in many many years.

My firewalls slammed up into place, rejecting the foreign...something with a ferocity that the invader would no doubt find difficult. 

' _Well, aren't you a strange one._ ' A voice echoed within my mind. A voice that did not belong there. 

Only my mother belonged in my head! 

                        The virus or hacker or whatever it was eased out after a long few minutes of sorting through my furious thoughts. Whether it left by choice or because of my firewalls was unknown. 

The room had fallen back into a silence by the time I was freed from the dreadful hat's depths, what seemed like countless pairs of eyes staring at me in eager, excited anticipation. A quick glance up at the head table revealed a line of teachers with frowns, none so deep as Dumbledore and Snape’s. 

                       The Headmaster was once again- still?- on his feet, looking down at me and the hat being held in McGonagall’s hands.

“Well, hat?” The man demanded impatiently.

For an article of clothing without a face, the thing manage to look pretty smug when he spoke to Dumbledore loud enough for it to carry a little ways through the hall. 

“I’m sorry, Headmaster but I cannot sort him.” The thing admitted, not sounding at all apologetic in truth.

                         The students within hearing range nearly exploded in a series of whispers, rumors and speculations. Mutterings of ‘no way!’ and ‘impossible!’ carried through the air like winds. I could hear theories ranging from me being a secret adult in disguise who had already been sorted in the past and couldn’t be again, that I wasn’t human so the hat couldn’t read my thoughts or that I’d secretly been getting training in the mind arts since childhood and my mental shield were so strong not even the famous sorting hat could see through them. All ridiculous of course. Except for that not-wholly-human one. That hit closer to the mark than anything.

“What? Why?” The Deputy Headmistress asked in utter shock.

                         Apparently this was some sort of never before seen occurrence. Wonderful. It was a good thing that the wizards didn’t know about the two cores sulking in my luggage.  

The hat raised the two opposite sides of its brim in a strange sort of shrug. 

“I simply cannot. I cannot read him. Our brains are...incompatible.”

Incompatible. What an apt description.

“How so, Timmaeus?” Dumbledore queried curiously. 

“It’s just...numbers.” Numbers? My thoughts were numbers? “Just a million constantly shifting ones and zeros.” 

                           Realization dawned on me like a lightbulb flicking on, though it clearly meant nothing to the wizards. My thoughts were in code. I suppose it did make an odd sort of sense. Part of my brain was a computer and the other part was constantly incorporating data from one. It made perfect sense that my thoughts would adapt to reflect that.

“I see…” The annoying bearded man hummed. The entire hall waited with bated breaths as students and staff alike all looked to see what the solution would be. This was unprecedented I supposed. Then again, a human-A.I. hybrid was sort of unprecedented in the muggle world too.  “Well, Mr.-” I gave him a furious glare that few within range of it could mistake, “Aperture. Which house would you like to be sorted into?”

                           Hm. Well that was a revelation. I never expected to be able to chose. Hermione had assured me that choice didn’t play a part in the sorting but I suppose that my situation was an exception to the rule. So which would it be?

Gryffindor for the bold. That didn’t sound like me. I was calculated, analytical.

Hufflepuff for the loyal. I was loyal, certainly. So that house was an option.

Slytherin for the ambitious. Ambition didn’t really define me. I didn’t seek power or recognition. What use did I have for such things? Within Aperture, there was no higher position than mine and that was simply by dint of biology.

Ravenclaw for the witty and studious. Now that sounded more like me! Experiments, research? That was my whole life! Literally. 

“I choose Ravenclaw, Headmaster.”

“Then let it be...Ravenclaw!”

                         Hermione beamed happily from her place at the Gryffindor table as the room began to clap at last. There were some issuing groans of relief at the promise of coming food others still excitedly chattering about this latest bit of juicy gossip. Professor McGonagall directed me to the table that stood clapping the loudest. My heart ached a little to see the lovely Luna sitting alone at the end of the table, tying knots into dozens of little ribbons attached to a small rod. Several of the Ravenclaws beckoned me to sit with them in their little cliques and groups along the two long tables, calls of ‘Potter, sit here!’ and ‘Harry, come sit with us!’. I ignored them all. When I slid into place next to Luna without a word, she gave me a dreamy smile that was evidently just her default expressive setting, judging by the frequency of use.

                       “You could be very popular, you know. For an ultimate position in the hierarchy here, I would recommend becoming friends with the sixth year over there with the blonde ponytail. She would make an excellent friend and social experiment specimen.” She replied to my presence softly, her fingers working at the knots quickly and efficiently. A sort of tactile record of some kind. A journal of sorts, perhaps?

“No.” My gaze took in as her pale fingers suddenly stilled on the ribbons, silver-blue eyes meeting mine. “I would much rather be here with you.”

The smile that spread across her face was worth the sacrificed data one-hundred times over.

What could I say? I was the Emotion Core, sentiment included.

  
  


A/N: SO! What did you think? :) The Sorting is over and school has begun! Please comment and let me know what you think!


	12. Obstacle Building

A/N: YAY! And just for those of you who are curious, this story currently has  41,678 words written on it (as of the time that this chapter is _written_ , rather than when it's posted), obviously not all of it posted. HOWEVER there are some pretty epic and intense scenes coming up so be prepared! :) I may time skip through the more boring parts of the school year so pardon me for that.

 

Disclaimer: Nope.

 

**_Chapter 00110001 00110010_ **

 

_ Obstacle Building _

  
  


Wizards were an interesting species. As a whole they were both very different than their Muggle counterparts and very similar. They segmented and separated themselves off into little cliques and sub-communities within the larger school culture, even within houses and years. 

 

Activities were dictated by a rotating schedule of classes and extracurriculars. Yet they still found time to engage in the typical dramas of teenage life such as who was dating whose ex-boyfriend and other such nonsensical gossip. The cultures within the separate houses were even different. Observation and Hermione's own meticulous descriptions revealed that Slytherin apparently had a very complex set of hierarchies and social rules all based around blood purity, wealth and social status. Their ways were absolute and each year had a sort of leader who answered to the house's 'king' who in turn answered to their Head of House who ruled over all. None of the other houses seemed to have such fleshed out social mores but they existed nonetheless. 

 

It was all tremendously fascinating.

 

I had spent the morning filtering information to Fact Core through a sort of intranet connection that we'd spent the night establishing. I had needed to establish an entirely new set of protocols for the poor core to handle the influx of new information on the seemingly nonsensical magical world. Trying to cross-reference and make sense of something that defied the laws of nature was making my little friend overheat. I had never been more thankful for the lack of sleep my body required. While my classmates slept, I could work away in peace. 

 

"Harry!" 

 

I gritted my teeth at the frustratingly familiar voice that called across the hall for me. Dozens of eyes turned to watch the tall, dark haired man practically rush towards me. Some of the girls had strange hungry looks in their eyes as my supposed "godfather" strode by. They looked as if they were planning how best to eat him. Were wizards prone to cannibalism? 

 

"Harry! How did you sleep last night?" 

 

Ah, to just ignore him or to take the high road? Sigh.

 

"I only require seven hours of sleep every other night, professor. I spent the evening making alterations and repairs to my Fact Core instead." I replied civilly and succinctly. There was no sense in antagonizing those who were suppose to be in authority. At least, not unless I was planning on dropping them into a testing chamber. The jury was still out on Black in that regard.

 

I honestly didn't think he was smart enough to complete one let alone a full set of nineteen. It didn't bring me any pleasure to set an idiot up for failure in a test chamber unless there was to be some sort of scientific gain from it. Then again, it was awfully tempting to do it just to watch him get crushed by a spike plate. 

 

His smile became a little less intense and sincere, suddenly taking on a rather forced appearance.

 

"You...You brought one of them, eh?" 

 

"Of course. It was arranged with the headmaster as one of the conditions of my attendance here." Feeling decidedly wicked, I added in with a smile, “I also brought Turret Core.” 

 

He greened a little with the memory of his bullet wound to the leg and the sight was somehow incredibly satisfying. 

 

"Right..."   
  
"And for the last time, my name is Chell. Are you sure you’re qualified to be a professor if you can't even remember your supposed 'godson's' name?" There was a gasp from the Ravenclaws around me.

 

Black colored in anger.

 

"You  _ are _ my godson! There's no supposedly about it!"

 

My gaze on him was unimpressed as I retrieved my breakfast of CalorieMate bites. Nothing needed to be said so it wasn't. His actions and who I had and, more importantly  _ hadn’t _ grown up with, spoke all that needed to be spoken.

 

The tension around us was growing and the Ravenclaws around us were beginning to whisper to one another as they watched the growing showdown. People were beginning to stare.

 

“Your name is Harry Potter, not Chell Appetizer or whatever! You belong here, you should have been here from the beginning not being holed up in some-! Some muggle facility! You're supposed-"

 

His rant was interrupted by the arrival of a smiling Hermione, hair up in a ponytail today that bobbed and swayed merrily behind her. I wasn’t sure that a better savior could have been summoned in that moment. A sort of tight rage that was steadily building towards the man in front of me relaxed, relieved, at the sight of her. 

 

"Professor Black! I'm sorry to interrupt but Professor Sinistra is looking for you." 

 

The man's expression fell from his angry scowl suddenly into a sort of nervous, grey pallor. 

 

"Er, thank you, Ms. Granger. You don't happen to know where she is do you?"

 

She grinned brightly, her whole being radiating helpfulness and innocence.

 

"Oh she is on her way here, Professor. She should be here any minute now!"

 

Sirius muttered some sort of goodbye and an excuse before he nearly bolted out of the Great Hall as if a turret core were after him. Luna grinned over her scone and our Gryffindor companion slid into the bench at my side, helping herself to a cup of tea.

 

"Was Professor Sinistra really looking for him?" The moon princess queried mischievously. 

 

Without missing a beat, Hermione said simply, "Of course not." 

 

Lying to a professor just to get me out of an awkward and infuriating conversation? I was really beginning to love these girls. 

 

I couldn't help but notice the hungry eyes that followed Black as he exited the room from members of both the female and male population. 

 

Noticing it with Black was like seeing an ant amidst a crowd of them. Once you see one, you suddenly begin to see more and more until you realize that you're standing on a hill of them and they're beginning to chew on your legs. Recognizing it with Sirius made me realize how many others were leveling me with the same ravenous look. It was a rather unsettling experience. 

 

"Eh, Hermione?" 

 

"Yes?" She asked, busy loading her plate with eggs and some sort of strange, unidentifiable casserole. She was entirely unaware of the dozens of gazes that were boring into me from all sides.

 

"Can you tell me why all of those girls," and a few boys too, "are looking at me like that? Is ritualistic cannibalism a part of wizarding culture?"

 

Her head whipped up in alarm before turning to look where I indicated a few of the hungrier looking females congregating and whispering amongst themselves.

 

To my alarm, she let out a sound that was part laugh and part snort of disdain.

 

"You're not far off." She drawled wryly, "They don't want to eat you, Chell, they want to  _ date _ you." 

 

“Date?” It was clearly some sort of human ritual of some sort. “Date as in the calendar? I’m assuming you don't mean the fruit. It’s some sort of slang, correct?” 

 

A few of the teens within hearing range giggled behind their hands, one sixth year even going as far to lean forward with a disbelieving, "Date! You know: kiss, dance, broom closet? Have you lived under a bloody rock your whole life or what?"

 

My expression was bland and dispassionate at the boy, a Roger Davies if I recalled correctly.

 

"In an underground scientific testing facility, actually."

 

That shut him up accordingly. Hermione shot the teen a disgusted look and straightened herself up, readying herself visibly for a lecture.

 

"To date someone means to make a social or romantic appointment or engagement between two people. It is usually how people find someone that they eventually plan to tie themselves to for life. Rather like the courtship rituals between swans. Dating is about finding an acceptable mate whether they be of the male or female persuasion."

 

Oh. 

 

I almost wished it had been the cannibalism.  

 

“I see. Well, I already have a mate so I’m afraid they’re going to have to be disappointed.” A series of strange ‘ooohh’s and ‘aw!’s followed that I didn’t understand but made Hermione roll her eyes.

  
  


**_://01100011 01101000 01100101 01101100 01101100//:_ **

  
  


Classes were...difficult. Far more difficult than I expected. Having to use my non-dominant hand for the first time was proving to be very challenging. 

 

My first day in Charms, I accidentally shot my hedgehog into a nearby Gryffindor while trying to transform it into a pincushion. 

 

Our second class, Transfiguration, was a blissfully boring day of lectures that made me realize how extremely inefficient using a quill and ink was.

 

In Care of Magical Creatures, the...creatures, if they could be called such a thing, would not come anywhere near me and reacted most...explosively if forced to do so. The giant man, Hagrid, was most offended when I asked for the body of a deceased Skrewt for autopsy and anatomical study.

 

Defense Against the Dark Arts was an embittered farce taught by ‘Professor’ Black who insisted on using me for demonstrations to the class, convinced that i must be good at a subject that I had never studied simply because my father was. After a completely accidental yet completely satisfying table of equipment ended up exploding and peppering him and nearby students with splinters and shrapnel, he gave up on me. For the time. 

 

The man’s determination to be my ‘best friend’ or some sort of confidant was grating on my last nerve. He had even had the audacity to catch me in the hallway and interrupt a very interesting conversation about Ancient Runes with Penelope Clearwater, just to ask me with a wink and  nudge about what girl I was romantically inclined towards! 

 

Finally, when he made me late for History of Magic, I snapped.

 

“Enough! Stop bothering me! I am not interested in any females at Hogwarts! I have a partner already back home and Wheatley is decidedly male in any case!”

 

“Wait-. What? Wheatley the robo-”

 

“ _ Yes _ ! The robot! Not that it’s any of your business! I don’t know what I have to do to make it clear but  _ I don’t like you _ ! I don’t want anything to do with you! You refuse to see who I am instead of who you’re trying to force me to be! I will never be that person!”

 

Yes, I knew that my words were beginning to step into low-blow territory but it couldn’t be helped. Being cruel to him, force feeding him the truth, was all that could be done to stop this endless harassment!

 

“That boy disappeared the day you decided to shirk your duty and follow your own desires instead of your responsibilities to me! Everything that has happened to me, everything I have gone through was all your fault! Because you had to be the big tough guy, I got dumped at some intake facility alone with a bunch of druggies and vagrants! Anything could have happened to me! Plenty  **_did_ ** happen to me! So just get over yourself! I’m never going to be Harry damned Potter!” 

 

Black looked as if he had just been told his puppy had been shot and that he had just been fed it’s carcass. A sort of painful grief passed over his countenance that sparked a dull sensation in my stomach. Guilt? What did I have to feel guilty about? It was he that should feel guilty for being a complete moron! Nonetheless, it was there and somehow, it only made me angrier.

 

“Stop harassing me now and just leave me  _ alone _ !”

 

My screams echoed off of the cold, unfeeling stone walls and left an almost violent silence ringing in their wake. Black stared at me in that broken sort of way and there was a saddened expression of realization in his eyes that told me my words had gotten through. 

 

“I...I see.” 

 

It seemed as if something had clicked within his understanding, a sort of realization that he had been instrumental in my being missing for so many years. For the first time, I think he was realizing just how responsible he was and it had never occurred to him that I might not necessarily be happy to be found. That meeting him might not be the blessing that he thought it might be. That I would be angry at the part he had played in my abandonment. 

 

“I...Excuse me.” He whispered, his eyes finding the ground in grieved astonishment before he swept quickly fromt the hallway. 

 

The few stragglers in the corridors were whispering with shock and already fueling the rumor mill. No doubt by dinner time, all of Hogwarts would know about the verbal slaying that the Defense professor had gotten in front of everyone. I pushed the red hot fury out of me and stormed down the hall, already adding ‘insufferable’ to the list of traits commonly found amongst wizarding kind.


	13. Tunnel of Fun-nel

A/n: Hello, all! So as of the time this chapter is up, NaNoWriMo is over and I’ve officially won! I tend to jump around in my stories which is why there isn’t more actively  _ posted _ on Cara Mio. For example, I already have the entire last arc of this story written as well as  _ two _ epilogues! :) So I am going to be doing regularly paced updates for a bit but then there will be a bunch of chapters all posted at once. Just to keep all of you updated! 

 

Disclaimer: Nope.

 

**_Chapter 00110001 00110011_ **

 

_ Tunnel of Fun-nel _

 

Unsurprisingly, I found myself in the library more often than not. Even more unsurprisingly was the fact that most of the time found Hermione and Luna at my side when the latter wasn’t out hunting her shoes or nerfs or whatever other fantastical beast she claimed existed that week. The self-proclaimed moon goddess was no stranger to her things going missing and the bullying of her peers. I was quickly becoming no stranger to it myself. Fortunately for me, I had a Turret Core that sat on the end of my bed to protect my possessions from going missing. It hadn’t stopped someone from attempting it though, judging by the smattering of bullet holes in the wall opposite my bed. Even now in the sanctity of the library, there were the usual titters and overly dramatic gasps of horror at the ports in the back of my skull. Not even the adults were immune. 

 

The first time Professor Flitwick had gotten a good look at them while I was turning in an essay mid-class, he had done a double-take so violent that the perch of books he stood on teetered and sent him careening to the floor. McGonagall had gone white as a sheet and the Gameskeeper had shouted an expletive in the middle of the Great Hall, much to the scolding of the Deputy Headmistress. 

 

Thank Johnson for the sanity that was Severus Snape. 

 

He had simply snapped at a few girls who had taken to giving shrieks of “alarm” every time I walked by to silence themselves or they would lose fifty House points each for disturbing the peace. The Patils hadn’t done it since but instead continued to mutter loudly every time I was in the vicinity. Ron Weasley was, by far, the worst annoyance that I had come across at Hogwarts though. Second only to the absence of decent wifi, the red-headed menace was fast becoming a rather reckless thorn in my side. Not even the Weasel could take away the fascination of this...project that Hermione and I had decided to undertake. 

 

We were going to bring magic and technology together, a merging of the two greatest powers of the world. True technomancy. If we could pull it off at least. The librarian, when we described the project we were planning on undertaking, directed us helpfully to a hidden room on the seventh floor where we could set up a workshop. Now that we had done so, we just had to do what we did best: research.

 

“Okay so we’ve seen what happens when spellwork is applied to a piece of technology right?”

 

“The magic overloads and fries the circuits.” Hermione answered my query, looking up from the text she had been scowling at for some time. Her brown eyes were bright with determination and fascination for the challenge placed before us. Intelligence Core hovered at her back, scanning the information in the book for later reference. 

 

‘ _ Specifically, the processors seem to be getting incompatible data incoming from the spells themselves much faster than it can process it which results in an overheating and, inevitably, an explosion. _ ’ The sphere sounded much calmer than he should given the high likelihood that he would be subjected to the same end that he spoke of. 

 

It was so useful to have a sentient machine to interface with the tech we were actively experimenting on! The cores could give us input that we would have a hard time gaining otherwise. I would have had to connect to the devices themselves and honestly, I had no desire to have something literally explode while my consciousness was attached to it. 

 

“So the three main problems are this: incompatible data, the speed of the incoming data, and the overheating circuits. The overheating will likely be solved by resolving the first two issues though it couldn’t hurt to add some sort of extra cooling system and an override once the circuits get to a certain temperature.” I explained, the sounds of Hermione’s note taking a dull white noise in the quiet of our study alcove between the shelves of books. 

 

“No doubt the more spells placed on a thing or the stronger the magic it’s around, the worse the problem will be.” She inferred, grimacing, her quill paused on the parchment. 

 

‘ _ Fortunately for us, magic oftentimes doesn’t follow  _ **_logic_ ** _. It’s been my observation that the strength of the magic around it doesn’t seem to have any effect on the object in question. The number of spells however…They appear to have a tendency to react with one another without some sort of stabilizing agent. _ ’ The core explained, shaking his head in disgust at the level of lack of sense when it came to all things magic.

 

“So we need to find out how to speed up the processing abilities of the tech, translate the spells into something the technology will recognize, cool the system down and find a way to keep the spells separate but still active! That is...quite the impressive workload.” 

 

I wasn’t entirely sure that my rudimentary knowledge of magic was up to the challenge, in all truth. Hermione’s, however, was. This was the type of work that I revelled in. The concrete and measurable, not magic and unquantifiable, unexplainable forces. 

 

“We’re going to have to work with something a little larger than is feasible for something portable but once we get the cooling systems and state drives working together with the spellwork, we can look into how we can make it smaller. Maybe a shrinking charm? We may be able to prevent the spells from interacting by placing a small ward in between casting each spell.” Hermione offered but huffed a sigh, frowning down at our work table covered in books. It was no small amount but even still, she was unsatisfied with the information at hand. “We’re going to need to find books on warding. It’s something typically only skimmed in the Hogwarts curriculum.” 

 

Fact Core’s pink eye blinked down at her with a pleased appraisal.

 

“Can you do it?”

 

The glint in the cocoa colored eyes was sharp and nearly maniacal. 

 

“They don’t call me the smartest witch of my generation for nothing.”

  
  


**_://01100011 01101000 01100101 01101100 01101100//:_ **

  
  


“Potter!” Did the idiocy of wizards never cease? Truly, Ronald Weasley was a prime specimen of such an irritating phenomena. I heard Hermione sigh at my side and our resident moon princess give a disinterested hum.

 

‘Perhaps he should be put into captivity for further study,’ I thought uncharitably. 

 

“Weasley.” The name came out of my mouth not as a shout but as the low monotone that mirrored my mother’s, a habit I had picked up in childhood when I was angered. My eyes alit on the scowling redhead and the two smirking henchmen he was wont to have at his heels. Honestly, whoever thought Ron Weasley would make a good leader to follow was clearly on their way to winning a Darwin Award. With people like that, it is truly amazing that humanity became the prevailing species on the planet. “Finnegan. Thomas.” 

 

“I see you’re still slumming it with the bookworm and Princess Freakshow here. Having your own harem is nice and all but why not come and spend some time with the real men, eh?” The Weasel smirked, elbowing his buddies who dissolved into sniggers.

 

Hermione flushed furiously, the slight to her honor more than she could bear silently.

 

“Harem? Wow, Ronald, that’s an awfully big word for you. I’m surprised you can pronounce it with your face stuffed full of  _ Dean _ all the time.” 

 

The two boys blanched, turning green at the implication. 

 

“You’d know all about poufs, wouldn’t you, Granger?” Chimed in the unaffected Finnegan, “You and Loony probably have a spot of fun in the library with all of the time you spend there, huh? All of those tall bookshelves no one can see around. And what about you, Potty? Prime bender if I’ve ever seen one. Who else would wear that tight bodysuit under their robes other than a gent who takes it up the arse in his free time?”

 

Surprisingly, it was Luna who stepped forward to my defense. Rather than to the underling, however, she smartly addressed the ringleader, her floating voice carrying in the hall and tinged with amusement.

 

“Weasley. Weasley. That's right. I'm very familiar,with your brother, Rozencrantz.  _ Charlie Weasley _ .” 

 

Ron’s expression went through an interesting metamorphosis in that instant and his fingers went a little slack. He turned an ugly shade of puce in both horror and fury and then a pale unhealthy green. His eyes darted around to see if anyone had overheard the name before settling on his compatriots who’s confident swaggers had become uncomfortable and uncertain. 

 

Charlie Weasley? What was it about his brother that could bring Ron stuttering to a halt? 

 

At Hermione’s knowing smirk, the disturbance in the ginger boy was replaced with fury. I had a matter of two seconds for my servers to process his intentions before he acted. I didn’t have time to react consciously. 

 

Consciously.

 

As I had been programmed to do, my protocols responded where my human limitations would have caused a catastrophic failure.

 

My brain fell into static at the approach of danger suddenly, a precautionary, protective failsafe that shut down the humanity in me and brought GLaDOS’s programming to the forefront. As if in slow motion, I watched his hand tighten on his wand and his arm shoot upward to point at, surprisingly, me. 

 

Two seconds warning to decide how to proceed.

 

For someone with a computer attached to their brain, it was more than enough.

 

My fingers wrapped around his wrist, an elbow found his diaphragm in one smooth movement. The whoosh of his breath being forced out of him was cacophonous in the stone corridor. The sound of footsteps rang out but they would not be in time to aid the weasel. My knee came up and his wand arm was smashed against it hard, once, twice, and his wand clattering to the ground was almost as loud as the sound of his wrist fracturing. 

 

A shriek of pain followed by gasps of alarm registered to my mind before I jumped back to my companions’ sides, calculations and scenarios scrolling across my eyes. Calculating, quantifying, and measuring every possible action and consequence.

 

Weasley was crouched on the ground shrieking, tears and snot spilling down his face. He looked pathetic. Snivelling, weak,  _ human _ . 

 

The slow static was beginning to dissipate in bits and pieces. My vision faded back into view rather than simply sound and the rapid-fire programming that had replaced it. Interestingly enough, the footsteps that had joined us were none other than the blonde prefect from the train. Draco Malfoy sneered at the weeping boy, his arms crossed and posture angry. 

 

“Weaselby. I’m sure your Head of House would be very interested to know your uncouth and vulgar opinions on your female classmates. Wouldn’t you agree? McGonagall takes sexual harassment very seriously, you know.” He drawled, fury turning his voice into a low hiss. 

 

Hermione gave him a grateful nod, smirking at the red-head over her ally’s shoulder. It never hurt to have a Malfoy in your back pocket after all. Weasley ground his teeth down with disbelief and pain racing up his arm.

 

“That freak broke my bloody arm!” He ejected with an echoing cacophony that clashed against the unforgiving stones.

 

Malfoy raised a stoic, unfeeling eyebrow at his tearful anger.

 

“Twenty more points for language amd slander, Weasel.”

 

“But Potter-!”

 

“I didn't see any such thing. I must have...blinked.” The sniveling Gryffindor blanched, his friends picking him up under his arms. Malfoy’s eyes were frigid and pitiless. “Better get to the hospital wing, Weasel. If my impeccable memory serves, you have Potions next. I doubt Professor Snape will excuse tardiness just for a  _ fall _ in the corridor.” 

 

Fortunately, Thomas and Finnegan dragged the cursing, frothing boy off before he could lose their house any more points. 

 

The prefect turned back towards them, his eyes scanning his ally to check for physical injuries quickly and efficiently. He certainly looked after those under his protection, Slytherin or otherwise. It was something I could appreciate in a person. 

 

“Hello, Yong-sun.” Luna trilled happily as if we hadn't just been slurred and threatened. As if I hadn't just attacked a fellow classmate. 

 

Draco rolled his eye but did not otherwise acknowledge the strange name other than a simple, “Lovegood.” 

 

His piercing grey eyes were boring into me like a drill, a nearly physical sensation. Could wizards actually affect a person with just a glance? Was it some sort of secret power that I had not yet learned of? 

 

“Thank you, Malfoy. Your help is...most appreciated.” Hermione offered with another nod of thanks. 

 

“No need to thank me. Weasley is a disgrace of a pureblood. I would never miss a chance to see him brought down a broom or two.” His eyes never left mine even as the aristocrat addressed the Gryffindor. “Aperture. I may not be around next time. If you’re trying to stay out of the Headmaster’s office, I would suggest you reign in your...responses.”

 

With that, he turned and left us there in the middle of the corridor to think over his words carefully.

 

None of us were aware that there was a pair of thoughtful dark eyes watching around a corner.

  
  


A/N: Sorry this chapter took so long to get out! Expect it to pick up though because this month is Camp NaNoWriMo! Woot! :D Good for you readers and busy for me! Enjoy!


	14. Team Building

A/N: Weeee’rrrreeee BACK! 

 

Disclaimer: I own nothing. It is all owned by J.K. Rowling, Harry101UK, and Valve. Sadly. If it WERE owned by me, we would have a Portal 3. Also, as always, please go check out Harry101UK’s Youtube channel where he makes amazing Portal videos like Meet The Cores (  [ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlFXCC4Hfa0&t=5s ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlFXCC4Hfa0&t=5s) )! Show his amazing channel some love because his cores helped inspire some of what you see here in this fic!

 

**_Chapter 00110001 00110100_ **

 

_ Team Building _

 

“Mr. Aperture, please stay after class.” 

 

Black’s voice rang out in the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom against the backdrop of excited whispers after the latest lesson. It had involved a strange creature known as a Billiwig and a few classmates were still floating back down to the ground after Black had administered antidotes for the tiny blue insects.  

 

I gave the man a nod of recognition but otherwise did not recognize the command. It had been thrown out almost as an afterthought, an attempt to throw off any nosy listeners-in, no doubt. If it didn’t sound like something to gossip about, then the voraciously curious teenagers wouldn’t find any reason to take notice. 

 

He continued on to explain the uses of Billiwig venom in the treatment of depression at St. Mungoes and alternately how, in the Australian outback, tribes of magical aborigines lined their arrows with the stingers of the creature in order to harness the levitation effects of the venom to make their enemies easy floating targets. 

 

The magical world was a stranger and stranger place every day.

 

Class was dismissed and Luna gave me a brilliant, dreamy smile before skipping out of the door behind a still giggling Hannah Abbott. It left me alone with my self-proclaimed godfather. Sirius shuffled and straightened the homework papers he had taken up during class. His stalling gave me ample time to observe the man undetected.

 

Sirius Black had been quiet and introspective in recent weeks. True to his shocked revelation, other than in obligatory classes and meals, he had stayed off of my radar and out of my way. Saying it had been a relief would have been a gross understatement. Not to say that I wasn’t aware of him watching me when he thought I hadn’t noticed but at least he had attempted to be discreet about it. Our blow up in the very public forum certainly hadn’t endeared me to the female student population of late. Apparently the Defense professor had quite the fan club and they hadn’t appreciated me making him looked like a whipped puppy. 

 

My patience was just beginning to run thin when the man finally deemed himself ready to speak at long last. It couldn’t have come too soon.   

 

“Mr. Aperture.” I suppose an old dog really could learn new tricks after all, “Chell. Do you know how our legal system here in the Wizarding World operates?”

 

I, unfortunately, had not assimilated that information yet. My databanks on the subject were woefully blank. A sick feeling in the pit of my stomach told me that the information was about to become extremely pertinent. 

 

“Not yet.” Though there was the sneaking suspicion that he was about to enlighten me. 

 

Black looked up from his desk at last, staring me down with a look that was free of the almost worship that it had held when first we had met. 

 

“Your parents, when they...died, left a will that detailed specific instructions on what should happen to you if something were to happen to them.” He pulled from on top of his desk a navy-hued folder stamped with a rather legal looking crest and passed it to me. I barely felt  the textured paper hit my hand. Whether it was from the anxious numbness spreading through my being or a malfunction in my tactile sensors was anyone's guess. 

 

"Against their wishes and due to my...incarceration, you were sent to live with your aunt and uncle. Now that I am free however, I plan to use every ounce of the political and financial power granted to me as the Lord of the House of Black to see that remedied." 

 

Remedied?

 

There was a strange squirming sensation boiling up within my belly and writhing into the place behind my sternum. It felt like I would vomit snakes at any moment. 

 

"If I was never supposed to go to the Dursleys then where would this so called remedy of yours see me go?" The words almost refused to come out, sticking in my throat. My question sounded far more steady than I truly felt. Surely it was shock for this absolutely could not be reality. 

 

It couldn't actually be happening right? There was no way Black could do this. Not and get away with it. GLaDOS would not allow him to get away with it and neither would I. After all, what was I but a part of her?

 

"With me."

 

Of course it was. A crinkling sound brought my gaze downward where my mechanical strength had all but crushed part of the file in my hands. 

 

"No." The word escaped me with a matter of factness that I wouldn't have expected even from myself. Shock, indeed. Black had raised one dark eyebrow from behind his desk.

 

"No?"

 

Surprise was wearing off only to be replaced with anger with a cybernetic efficiency. How dare this foolish man try to do this! To go behind my back and try to worm his way into taking custody of me! I should have Turret Core fill him with bullets and then see how badly he wants to force me into such a place!

 

"No! I won't stay with you! I don't want anything to do with you, Black! You can't do this!" I hissed furiously and practically threw the papers back down onto his lacquered desk. He could take his legal documents and shove them sideways!

 

Sirius sighed darkly, siding the packet back into his desk. It seemed there was real disappointment there. What could he have expected? For me to jump up and down giddily over his meddling? His eyes were strangely piercing, studying my every expression and reaction sharply. 

 

"You'll find that I can...but I won't." 

 

Surely I must have been doing an excellent impression of that simpleton, Weasley, with the flabbergasted expression that was stuck to my face. No matter how I tried to reign it in, I simply couldn't.

 

At least until the suspicion set in.

 

Why would Black drop a legal battle he was so clearly prepared to undertake? Was it simply to intimidate me? Into what? It made no sense. Unless...there was something he wanted in return. Yes, that was the most logical conclusion. I ground my teeth in annoyance, jaw muscles tightening and flexing. People. People were so imprecise. Messy and muddled. They weren't at all logical. If it weren't for science, I would be quite happy to leave the whole race behind. 

 

"And in return?" I was no fool. Humans were greedy things. Black would do nothing without his own agenda in mind, just like his precious Headmaster.

 

Sirius moved from around his desk, his navy blue robes sighing with the movement. He moved not like someone who had been imprisoned but like an aristocrat, someone who had been born into the title. Even the way he leaned on the edge of his desk was almost delicate. Was it a front? Or something ingrained? He hadn't seemed at all graceful when he was making a moron of himself in the depths of Aperture. Then again, writhing prostrate in agony could do that to a person. He leveled me with serious, dark cerulean eyes. There was a certain sadness there within the pools of blue that I was hard-pressed to identify. 

 

Sadness. True sadness. 

 

"I just want the chance to start over with you, Chell. I want to get to know you as you are and for you to get to know me. I want you to see me as someone you can spend time with and not just an annoyance. If you give me that chance, if you are willing to spend time letting me get to know you...I will not pursue the custody case." 

 

His voice, his words, they  _ sounded _ sincere but who was I to say? Dealing with humans directly was so new to me. I'd never had a human face to have to read emotions from. My whole world had been nothing but cores, turrets and GLaDOS since the very beginning of my recollection. How could his word be trusted? 

 

No doubt sensing my distrust, Sirius gave a soft half-smile and stuck his hand out to shake my own.

 

"On my honor, Chell. Please, give me a chance?" 

 

I didn't want to. Johnson only knew that GLaDOS would tell me to blast him with repulsion gel and call it a day. But...

 

Against my better judgement, I took his hand in a silent shake. Here was hoping he didn't make me regret it. 

  
  


**_://01100011 01101000 01100101 01101100 01101100//:_ **

 

 

Time passed quickly at Hogwarts. The rush of classes and activity, the strange constant changes that seemed the norm in the Wizarding World, made keeping up a must. I had to be prepared for anything, a sentiment I shared with Snape over the post-dinner teas that we had taken to striking up. 

 

"This world is lunacy." I groused, sipping the steaming black Earl Grey like a man with a burger on death row. Unnoticed, my internal sensors beeped out surface and internal temperatures and noted the progress of our project up in the Room of Requirement.

 

Fact Core was running diagnostics after our last failure. 

 

Call it grumpiness or cabin fever but I found myself...dissatisfied. Not even our technomancy project could distract me from the itching beneath my skin, the impossible urge to  _ move _ . Despite the frustration the sensation caused, I knew what it's root cause was.

 

I was homesick. I missed my family, my mother.  _ Wheatley _ . 

 

Furious regret simmered within my chest for leaving him behind. What was the point in leaving him in Aperture as a possible distraction if his absence in my life was a distraction in itself? What must he be going through without me there to be his buffer, the wall to protect his fragile feelings from offhand comments and derision? Second only to the loneliness was the crushing sense of guilt. The Christmas holidays were only a few short weeks away and there was an internal clock counting down the very nanoseconds until I could see my love again.

 

The professor set his spoon down next to his tea cup with a snort, shoulders relaxing every so slightly after a day filled with teenagers and tedium. The soft tinkling of china brought me out of my grim musings effectively. 

 

"Other might say the same about your enrichment center. As luck would have it though, I happen to agree. The Wizarding World has never been terribly adaptable or logical regrettably. Speaking of, I spend the summers in the Muggle world and I know that the common man doesn't have near the technology that Aperture does." The statement was phrased as a question and one that I didn't hesitate to pose an answer to.

 

"Would  _ you _ trust the likes of the common sheep like Ronald Weasley or manipulators like Dumbledore with sentient artificial intelligences? Or technology that could tear holes in the fabric of the universe?" A dark eyebrow was raised in disbelief to which I sipped my tea genially before adding, "Aperture Sciences once injected human athletes with preying mantis DNA to discover if it had practical military application."

 

"A point extremely well made." 

 

"Speaking of know-nothing morons, what is your opinion on Black and this...custody thing? Do you think I can believe his word that he won't press it?" I queried gently, cautious of the man's temper when it came to his nemesis. 

 

We had had many a rant on Black's idiocy over the course of the semester. Our feelings on the man's worth as a human were rather similar. I'd rather see him thrown into the testing track than sit down and talk to him. 

 

Snape's expression fell into something pained and sour as if he'd swallowed something wretched. His tea was set down on the table next to his highbacked chair with slightly more force than was strictly necessary. A bit of the amber liquid sloshed out of the side onto the pale saucer, reflecting in the flickering firelight like GLaDOS's eye shining in the belly of Aperture. Just like the way she use to look down at me as a child when I would do something that fascinated her. Great Johnson, I missed her...

 

"Black is not blessed when it comes to brain cells," Wow, for Severus that was almost a compliment when it came to my supposed godfather. "but I think as far as this is concerned...he will keep his word." 

 

Damn. And here I was just hoping I could arrange for an unfortunate "accident" to befall Black on one of the moving staircases.

 

The good professor continued, unaware of my internal murderous musings. 

 

"He is regrettably a Gryffindor through and through. Fortunately for you, that means that his sense of bravado and honesty will hold true." 

 

Well. At least the custody battle wouldn't be a problem. All I had to do was pay off the man with my presence. 

 

I heaved a sigh and Snape nodded in sympathy, returning to his tea. 

 

://01100011 01101000 01100101 01101100 01101100//:

 

A/N: That’s all folks! But expect a new chapter either tomorrow or the next day because IT’S NANOWRIMO!! :D


	15. Bridge Building

A/N: Ahhhh, it feels so nice to be writing and creating again! This is NaNoWriMo time so expect more chapters to come in quick succession! :) As always, read and review!

 

Disclaimer: I own nothing. It is all owned by J.K. Rowling, Harry101UK, and Valve. Sadly. If it WERE owned by me, we would have a Portal 3. Also, as always, please go check out Harry101UK’s Youtube channel where he makes amazing Portal videos like Meet The Cores ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlFXCC4Hfa0&t=5s )! Show his amazing channel some love because his cores helped inspire some of what you see here in this fic!

 

**_Chapter 00110001 00110101_ **

 

**_Bridge Building_ **

  
  


I joined Black in his office for a rather unceremonious dinner after a rather trying day. I wasn't just disastrous with magic, I was a hazard. My spellwork made Neville Longbottom's look good for Johnson's sake. It was a little harder than usual to ignore my classmate's disgusted glares when half of them were sporting shrapnel injuries from what was  _ supposed _ to be a simple Diffindo. 

 

More and more, little by little, I was beginning to hate this place.

 

More and more, day by day, I was debating on never returning after the Christmas holidays. 

 

It just wasn’t worth it. I was apparently incapable of magic on any sort of controllable level, even using my nondominant, natural arm. Hermione was over the moon about being a registered employee of Aperture with full benefits and everything. She could perform any magic that we needed for testing. Hogwarts didn’t  _ need _ me and I certainly didn’t care much for it. It was a shame, really. The idea of a magic school and learning the mechanics of such a fantastic thing had been too amazing to even comprehend. Magic itself was still as intriguing as ever. It was everything else that came with it that made the larger experience not worth it. The people, the backwards thinking, the lack of decent telecommunications. 

 

Sitting in front of me across a feast spread out over his desk, was one those people with the same backward thinking. Sirius Black.

 

He looked like someone straight out of a teenage girls magazine, something Hermione had claimed was purely for "research purposes". Looking at the man, one would never be able to tell that he had spent several years in what was supposedly the wizarding equivalent of a super-max prison, minus the human rights strictures. No doubt there was Dumbledore to thank for that and his cushy position as Defense professor. 

 

"You look like you're in a sunny mood this evening." The ex-con remarked with some amusement, ladling some thin soup into a bowl for me. My meal replacement snacks sat next to my plate, awaiting my attention. 

 

My emerald eyes just stared him down, confusion trickling through my mind before a subtle ping of information flicked across my interface.

 

"Ah. That was meant to be sarcasm. 'Using a sentence to convey its exact opposite meaning'. Then, yes, I am in the exact opposite of a 'sunny mood', Mr. Black." I straightened in the chair, forcing myself out of the sullen mood that had become me, accepting the bowl from him without thought. 

 

Black settled into his own portion of steak and pasta with some sort of cream sauce. The ticking of the mantle clock and the crackling of fire was a solemn background to highlight my abysmal mood. How long exactly was I expected to endure these socializations? 

 

"Is something the matter? Other than, you know...having to be here with me and all." It appeared a herculean effort for the admittance to not bring down his own air but somehow he managed it. Gryffindors. 

 

How dense could he be? What  _ wasn’t _ wrong? The only thing that was  _ right _ was my friendship with Hermione and Luna. 

 

"What's wrong is the entirety of the last four months! My project is seeing slower results than I would like, the students and teachers both stare and gasp at me like I'm some sort of movie monster, the Headmaster is constantly trying to force me into the public eye, no doubt for his own benefit, and I have never in my life been so utterly deplorable at something. I am horrible at magic, complete garbage. I don't even show up for Transfiguration anymore and the only reason McGonagall hasn't laid into me for it yet is no doubt due to Dumbledore's interference. I do well enough in your own class but in anything that involves the use of a wand, I'm a hazard and a danger." 

 

Somehow it all just came spilling out. Everything all at once that I had no intention on telling Black but my words were like a tidal wave crashing on the shore. Or rather, if his expression was to be judged, a hammer wielded into an unsuspecting face. 

 

A deep breath of respite was all that was given before I was continuing.

 

"And I miss my home! I miss my mother and Wheatley so much I can't stand it and I'm worried the others will mistreat him now that I'm not there to defend him and I hate this place! I hate the insanity of it and how nothing makes sense! I want to go home..." My interface's alerts and notices could give me details and statistics. They could run and run until Aperture collapsed into the ground but they could never describe the feeling of anguished loneliness that had taken up residence in my chest. 

 

Sirius, once the initial shock from my word vomit had worn away, was leaning, head propped on one elbow and looking for all the world as if I had done something adorably amusing. 

 

It made me want to stab him in the eye with his baguette. A baguette he was even now dipping into his stew lightly.

 

"Well...I hate to say that I'm at a loss about what to do about your magic, kiddo. Really, if I had any idea I would help. But..." He took a bite and chewed, clearly thinking on something fondly if the warmth that suddenly blossomed in his eyes was any clue, "Your dad got homesick too, you know. Our first year here."

 

That hadn't been what I expected. The Black in my mind would have laughed off my concerns coarsely, probably throwing in a degrading comment about GLaDOS or Wheatley for good measure. This though was even better than civility. The idea of gaining personal information about my biological parents, while previously of very little interest, was suddenly intriguing. What had they been like in reality rather than the near hero worship most spoke about them with? Had they been at all like the person I had turned out to be? 

 

Snape had mentioned my mother a few times but the utter contempt and loathing with which he spoke of James Potter lead me to the assumption that he was a troglodyte with a complete lack of respect for anyone else but himself. This vulnerable side of the Potter patriarch had me curious. 

 

"Really? Everyone always just talks about him as if he was Cave Johnson's gift to women and Quidditch." 

 

He snorted out a laugh between bites of his dinner. 

 

"Oh no. James' mother spoiled him like you wouldn't believe. See, with Purebloods complications at birth are pretty common and after she had James, his mum wasn't able to have anymore children. His parents doted on him and no matter how excited he was to come to Hogwarts, he was still just a little boy away from his mother for the first time. He got horribly homesick. I remember once, just after Christmas hols, he wouldn't sleep alone for two weeks. Fortunately our beds were right next to each other so no one ever knew." 

 

Sirius was a natural storyteller, it seemed. He continued on and on, varying between tales about James and then ones about Lily. Once, he even stood from the feast and brandished a fork to mimic an intense showdown between he and James and a gang of fifth year girls who hadn't appreciated one particularly audacious prank. The entire time he was grinning like I had never seen him grin before, his face lighting up with laughter. The expression took ten years off of him in an instant. 

 

I left after dinner and, though I still didn't like him, I didn't think I hated him much anymore. When I returned the next time, the change didn't bear mentioning at all. 

  
  


**://01100011 01101000 01100101 01101100 01101100//:**

  
  


"Come in, my boy, come in!" Came the far too jovial a tone from behind the solid oak door. 

 

I fought the intense desire to grit down on my teeth in sheer aggravation. What an impossible, pretentious man. The door gave way to reveal the beaming Headmaster behind, ensconced in his throne behind his chair. A puppeteer king sitting atop his shining kingdom. 

 

Clearly my opinion of Dumbledore had plummeted as the semester had gone on. 

 

“Headmaster.” I intoned flatly by way of greeting.

 

The office was strange and lavish, the epitome of a wizard’s tower from a child’s storybook. It was all gold accents and thick red carpets, bookshelves reaching deftly towards the ceilings and puffing, whirring, spinning silver instruments always in a state of aliveness. They reminded me a bit of turrets with their sweet sounding whistling and spindly legs. Today, the sight only made me long for home more, ready to put this bizarre place at my back for good.

 

“It is good to see you, Harry. Please, sit! Sit!” He exclaimed with a joviality that couldn't be normal. I know Severus had never hit the highs of mood that the Headmaster seemed to function on. 

 

Perhaps it was some sort of mood disorder. That or a narcotic substance, it was difficult to tell. I sent command to Fact Core to test the differences between muggle and wizarding tolerances to foreign substances. I slid into the seat the old man indicated, my face blank. Half of my brain was already running processes on what it might take to establish an Aperture intake facility in a wizarding locale. 

 

Hermione was too great an asset to risk any testing that may...put her out of commission. Besides, it seemed that I had become rather attached to my friends here at Hogwarts. They had really come through for me when I needed someone the most, so far from home. Hermione and Luna, even Severus, hadn't cared about my status as "Boy-Who-Lived". They hadn't seen Harry Potter, they had only seen the truth of me. The two young women had seen just Chell Aperture and accepted all that I was and all that that meant. I had never had friends that were human before. All of my life had been nothing but androids. 

 

No. Hermione would never face any sort of potentially harmful testing. She wasn't just some human, she was mine. My best friend.

 

Maybe Sirius would be interested in helping me in establishing an enrichment center in this world. He was always begging for a way to spend more time with me after all...

 

"How have you been, Harry? Are you enjoying your time here at Hogwarts? I’ve seen you and Sirius are becoming quite close! I hope it's keeping you suitably engaged?" Dumbledore hummed while offering me what looked to be some sort of sugary yellow confection. No way was I accepting anything edible from a crazy old man wearing bright green robes. 

 

Also, 'close' wasn't quite the word I would use to describe what Sirius was to me but we had come to a new understanding over the last week or two.

 

"I am doing well, Headmaster. Professor Black and I have created a far more amicable relationship lately. He isn't quite as intolerable as I once believed, certainly. As for Hogwarts, it's a grand castle and I have certainly learned much here but I'm afraid my study is coming to a close. I am excited to be able to finally analyse all of the data I've collected."

 

That was the truth too. GLaDOS was going to be beside herself with all of the data I'd gotten over my time here! I could collect and collect but even my advanced servers had to connect to my terminal in order to analyse it all properly. 

 

"To a close? What do you mean by that, my boy?" The twinkle was gone from Dumbledore's eyes and his hand dropped away from where he had been reaching for one of the afore-offered candies. His face lost much of it's smiling, glowing cheer within seconds.

 

I eased out a slow sigh. 

 

"Exactly what it means, Headmaster. I came to Hogwarts to see what I could see here. Now I need to return home so I can analyse all of the information that I've collected here. My terminal back in Aperture is the only place that can be done. Granted, a return to Hogwarts in the future is something I'm certainly interested in. There are even plans in the works to establish an Aperture facility here in the Wizarding World though it would likely be in England or in the Dublin area just because of sheer population density. For scientific purposes. As you are a scholar yourself, you must understand." 

 

I nearly scoffed to myself. A scholar indeed. A scholar of wardrobe malfunctions perhaps. What were Dumbledore's credentials even to run a school? He seemed well past the age of retirement, in my opinion. 

 

"I'm sorry, Harry but that's simply not possible. You are enrolled here at Hogwarts and if you leave, you'll be considered delinquent and not be allowed to return here. All of that opportunity would be wasted if you couldn't come back. So it's better to just stick out the year and then be able to return again after the summer holidays." He slid out expertly, giving me a slightly less bright smile than before. 

 

Not expertly enough that I didn't see the blatant manipulation for what it was. Please, who did he think he was talking to? I was a child of GLaDOS, the AI that used emotional manipulation to encourage test subjects on a daily basis. He would have to do better than that. Besides, I was the Boy Who Lived, right? What was that title worth if not to swing my supposed fame around as clout with the Ministry? 

 

"I'm sure it won't be a problem, Headmaster. Besides, I intend on setting up a Hogwarts internship and education program once we establish ourselves here in this world and that will provide ample opportunities to revisit Hogwarts again and again. My data collection will not be damaged if I were to not return as a student. In any case, my body's difficulties handling magical output have become at best a hazard to the other staff and students. It is best to take my leave before a truly serious incident occurs." I rebuffed lightly and waved off his concern as if it were a minor nuisance to be swatted away. 

 

His demeanor didn't crack but the aura in the room turned from one of ease to one of displeasure. Could wizards manipulate the very air in a room to echo feelings or was this some skill that I had to pick up on such things? Fascinating.

 

Dumbledore appeared to fall into a grieved state, removing his glasses in order to clean the lenses with a soft cloth. A wave of his wand brought forth a tea service. I could have grimaced. Really I was getting so sick of tea that surely it would start coming out of my pores any day now.

 

"I'm sorry to hear that. I'm sure Sirius will miss your presence here dearly. He has been so excited that you've finally given him a chance to right his wrongs. How can he do that if you leave and turn him away? And your parents...Their dearest wish was for you to attend here at Hogwarts as they did. I knew them well, Lily and James. They paid for your full tuition as soon as you were born so you could follow in their footsteps through these halls. They would be so disappointed to not have their final wishes honored, Harry. Won't you stay and get to know them better? Their friends, people they considered family, are here within your reach at Hogwarts. Out there, their memories will truly be dead to you forever." The Headmaster sighed as if pained by the very idea. 

 

What a freshly deposited pile of excrement. 

 

If I had been any other fourteen year old boy, his ploy likely would have been very successful. Unfortunately for him, I was part and parcel of a super advanced AI connected directly into my brain. 

 

"I have been here to Hogwarts and walked its halls, Headmaster, so their wishes have been honored. And as for their final wishes, I have it on good authority that those wishes involved never sending me to the Dursleys. I'm curious to know on who's authority that took place. Surely _that_  person is just as responsible for everything that has happened to me as Vernon Dursley." I stood, giving a respectable nod though the expression that had suddenly frozen coldly on Dumbledore's face was a pleasing victory.

 

A hit for a hit. 

 

"In any case, I don't intend to resume study here at your school after the Christmas holidays, regardless. I have been away from where I belong for too long and it has become clear to me that the magical world and I are not compatible for the long term. I really must go though, Headmaster. Professor Snape is going to be testing our knowledge of the mandrake root tomorrow that I must prepare for." I said by way of dismissal. 

 

Dumbledore did not look pleased.

 

"Yes, yes, Harry, do go on."

 

And it was _Chell_ , old man. 

 

If my face was tight with a vicious amusement as I exited from behind the gargoyle, it was no one's business but my own.

 

All that mattered was that in just a few agonizingly long weeks, I was going _home_. 


	16. Confidence Building

A/N: Two chapters in a week! YES. And man the story is beginning to heat up! Also, I want to make a note that there will be TWO ARCS to this story! One will focus on Chell pre- and peri-Hogwarts. The second...well, you’ll just have to find out, huh? ;) 

 

Disclaimer: I own nothing. It is all owned by J.K. Rowling, Harry101UK, and Valve. Sadly. If it WERE owned by me, we would have a Portal 3. Also, as always, please go check out Harry101UK’s Youtube channel where he makes amazing Portal videos like Meet The Cores ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlFXCC4Hfa0&t=5s )! Show his amazing channel some love because his cores helped inspire some of what you see here in this fic!

 

_**Chapter 00110001 00110110** _

_**Confidence Building** _

 

**://01100011 01101000 01100101 01101100 01101100//:**

The Room of Requirement was just as I had left it. With Hermione pouring over books on warding at a large desk and Fact Core running tests by the experimentation table. Our good old lab. 

Sigh.

I couldn't wait to show Hermione the Aperture labs if she thought  _ this _ set-up was wonderful. She had so much better things to look forward to. 

The witch noticed my entry and excitement suddenly burst into her previously still countenance.

"Chell!" She shouted gaily, marking her place in 'Wards Without Words: Sigil-bound Warding' rapidly.

Her hair was falling gently out of the bun she had thrown it up in, raming her face in a way that really brought out that thirst for knowledge in her eyes. She was lovely in her enthusiasm. 

GLaDOS would love her. 

"Hermione. Why is our lovely moon princess napping under the desk?" 

Sure enough, there was Luna coming out of a doze under the very desk that Hermione had just been perched at.

The brightest witch of the age flushed, helping the spritely girl to stand from the floor. It wasn't embarrassment that I could see there, though. It wasn't anger either. She flushed with excitement.

“She was helping me with something. We got the project to connect! All we had to do was place the small ward between each individual spell! The heat diverting system works flawlessly and as long as the receiver is outside of the wards, it works! It’s transmitting, Chell!  _ We did it _ !” She nearly shrieked, practically shaking the poor half-awake blonde in her intense joy. 

Fact Core confirmed the find and noted that current tests of the hardware, software, and temperature levels were holding steadily. The refridgerator sat humming merrily, unattached to seemingly any power source and with an expansion charm on the inside to boot.

Amazing! Think of it! True technomancy! And Aperture would be the first to pioneer it into this century after only knowing about magic for half a year! GLaDOS was going to be so proud! Eat dump files, Black Mesa! Now we could perfect it and begin the process of marketing it! Now that we knew the trick, we could apply it to any number of technological advances! Cell phones, hard drives, anything! We could have the Wizarding World up to speed with the Muggle one in no time at all with this! An entire world with the Aperture name emblazoned upon every piece of tech. It was our one of our biggest goals come to fruition!

“But that isn’t important!”

Wait, what? What in Johnson’s name could be better than that?! 

The two women gave one another happy, conspiratorial smiles and Hermione practically burst out with it, her elation palpable in the air itself.

"Lu and I, we think we found a way to help you contact Aperture again. To reconnect back to GLaDOS's mainframe.”

My insides, still broiling with my verbal victory over the Headmaster and our success, stilled. To reconnect? 

_ To be whole again. _

Emotion swelled within my chest, my stomach squirming with an excitement equal to the one that showed on her own face. Luna gave a dainty yawn and smiled in that not-quite-invested-in-what-she-sees, being-half-here-and-half-in-another-place way that she always did.

"Hello, Asteráki. You need to go to Hogsmeade now." She said simply before looping her arm through my own. 

Strangely, her hair seemed longer today. I noticed it as she slid up next to me. It nearly shone in the lights of the room and, yes, I was sure her hair had not been this long before. It shimmered in waves down to the small of her back. Luna appeared even more ethereal than usual, something that I had never noticed before.

A moon princess, huh...

"She's right! Chell, think about it! Diagon Alley! The wards!" The wards? "Your connection to GLaDOS was cut off because of the wards in Diagon Alley, right? There are wards here too, even stronger ones in fact! So if you go outside of the wards-!”

“Then the connection should reestablish itself! Luna, Hermione, you both are amazing!” The cry tore itself from my bursting chest. Yes! 

Why hadn’t I thought of it before! Of course, it had worked before! Wards had physical limits, as we had been learning with our technomancy project but if one were to go outside of those limits then the wards no longer had an effect. Even a single steps outside of their boundaries rendered them useless!

All it took was three rapid Disillusionment Charms later and we were racing out onto the grounds, leaving Fact Core to mind the project sullenly. 

**://01100011 01101000 01100101 01101100 01101100//:**

 

Hogwarts wards turned out to be, not just much stronger and older than Diagon Alley's but far more expansive. It was half a mile to the edge of the wards. The three of us had to hold on to one another to keep from losing each other. 

 

When we hit the borders of the wards, I knew the moment we had arrived. A streaming jumble of chaos erupted within my brain, sending me careening to my hands and knees in shock. A cry tore itself from me and Hermione cancelled the Disillusionments in a panic. 

 

There was so much...So much shouting and just constant streams of awareness that felt foreign and confusing. What the hell had happened in Aperture?! What happened to my mother?! Why wasn't she responding to my presence? GLaDOS had  _ always _ been extremely aware of my consciousness within hers. When I was awake, asleep, anxious, my biometrics,  _ everything _ . Yet now, when I was connected to her for the first time in months, instead of reaching out to me as she always had, it was this...this  _ mess _ !

 

So instead, I reached out to the first core that responded to my signal.

 

' **CHELL? CHELL! Sweet baby Caroline, I'm glad to hear from you** !' Creativity Core cried out in my mind, his surprise leveled only with the distress that seemed to be filling him up like a fountain. 

 

' _ What is it? What's happened?! _ ' A million things began to run through through my mind that could put that tone in his digitized voice. A hundred scenarios that could cause the chaos on the other end of my mind’s connection.

 

' **It's Wheatley!** '

 

My heart stuttered to a cold stop.

 

Out of the ninety-nine possibilities for what could have gone catastrophically wrong, Wheatley had not even occurred. Perhaps that was horrible of me. My first thoughts had been the facility, my mother, even a turret uprising! Never had it crossed my mind that something could be wrong with my beloved. 

 

Not in a million years did I expect what would come out of the core's mouth next.

 

' _ He's taken over the entire Enrichment Center! GLaDOS can't be found! The little idiot isn't upkeeping the facility! The whole place is falling apart _ !' 

 

Wheatley taking over...Aperture? My mother was missing? 

 

' _ What?! Why _ ?!'

 

' **Eh, I dunno. Something about proving he's not a moron or some such nonsense** .' On that, he was surprisingly cavalier. 

 

It made a hot simmer of irritation burn in my belly. If that was why Wheatley was doing all of this, then they had only themselves to blame! If they didn't ostracize and ridicule him then he wouldn't feel like he had to prove himself! GLaDOS had a good deal of blame in that regard, in all honesty. The other robots followed her example. When she singled him out for contempt, the others did too. Still, whatever he was doing, whatever he had done, I had to fix it. I had to do something.

 

' _ Creativity Core, can you patch me through to Turret 1009736 and Adventure Core without Wheatley noticing? _ '

 

A string of complicated coding and commands and I had access.

 

' **CHELL! It's CHELL!'**

 

' **Oh, thank Johnson! We're saved!** '

 

A chorus of jubilant cries filled my head all at once. It took a good moment or two to get them calmed enough to get anything sensible from them. Between them and the horrific nonsensical  traffic in the background, I was going to have one enormous migraine later. It didn’t matter though. Nothing else did. I was a man on a mission.

 

' _ Okay, is Wheatley connected to the Main A.I. Terminal _ ?'

 

' **Yeah, he's got control of everything! Sergeant and the the rest of the ranks are all in a fit trying to figure out what to do! He's started pulling out random turrets and connecting them to companion cubes! Can you imagine?** ' Turret 1009736 explained with a shudder.

 

Wheatley...what are you doing? 

 

What could have happened to force him to such lengths? What could i have done to prevent it? A despairing determination overtook me. I had been away for far too long. GLaDOS was right. I should've stayed back at Aperture. If I had been there, this would have never been able to happen. 

 

I was her failsafe...and I had failed. 

 

Never again would testing come before family and security.

 

It was time to go home.

 

' _ Okay, listen. You are all going to have to work together on this. Do whatever it takes but we need to detach Wheatley from the terminal. At all costs. Do you understand? _ '

 

**'ROGER** !'

 

At all costs... 

 

**_://01100011 01101000 01100101 01101100 01101100//:_ **

 

I turned to my friend quickly, a sudden sense of urgency overtaking me. Hermione looked startled by the change. Luna, not so much, but that was the usual for the proclaimed moon princess. 

 

"I have to go home. I have to go now. There's been a- They need me. Wheatley..." I wasn't sure if my words were making any sort of sense at all, just that...I needed their help. 

 

I wouldn't be able to get out of Hogwarts without their help. None of us could apparate and one had to go through the appropriate channels to procure an international portkey. But if anyone could get me back to the United States and back to Aperture, it would be these young women. My desperation must have translated through to them. 

 

Hermione's brow, furrowed before in confusion at my internal distress during my conversation with the cores, deepened. This time, however, it was with determination.

 

Tenacity, as my mother would call it. 

 

"We're with you, Chell. Just tell us what you need."

 

There was something humbling, something so astonishing and beautiful about her trust and faith in me that despite her ignorance of the situation, she was ready and willing to drop everything to be at my side. 

 

It reminded me of seeing the stars shining, twinkling in the night sky for the very first time. 

 

Luna's eyes were shining too when I looked to her, as if there were a little piece of that celestial body embedded there. 

 

"You're like a knight in shining armor, Asteráki. You need a knight's steed for your quest." She sang, smiling as brightly as the moon she was named for. Hermione and I both shared an equally confused look. That was, at least, until Luna offered me a comforting nod. “You must take on this quest alone but know that we will still be here for you when you return.”

 

She stuck her wand out at an angle in the air like some sort of strange salute.

 

At first, nothing happened. 

 

And then, with a bang like the crack of canon fire, there was a massive, bizarre bus standing in front of us, it’s conductor already stepping out of the folding doors to greet us.

 

The pockmarked faced young man ignored the two of us in favor of the small moon princess in our midst, going down on one knee before her.

 

“My lady! What can the Knight Bus do for you tonight?” He asked in an adoring, nasally tone that belied his love for the girl-goddess before him. He discreetly tried smoothing his wrinkled uniform to no avail.

 

The Knight Bus, eh? Oh, Luna...It seemed my fondness for her grew a little more every day. 

 

“Stanley, you are so good to come to me with such haste. My knight has a mission of gravest importance and needs the Priority Travel package. Can you get him to his home in the states post haste? This should cover everything.” She asked in her light, tinkling voice, handing him a small back of clinking coins.

 

His admiration was shining in his eyes as he stood, accepting the pouch humbly.

 

“Oh yes, your grace. You can count on us, don’t worry. Any friend of the moon princess is a High Priority for the Knight Bus! Come on then, sir, on you go. We do international transports in a jiffy!” 

 

Home. I was going  _ home _ . 

 

To whatever was left of it. 

 

Hermione ushered me onto the bus and Luna at last leveled her gaze turned serious on me. 

 

“We will see you when you return, Asteráki.”

 

As the bus shot off into the night, I didn’t have the heart to tell her that I didn’t plan to return to Hogwarts at all.

 

A/N: Don't forget to read and review! :)


	17. The Part Where He Kills You

A/N: Okay so this chapter is where you seem some of the events of Portal 2 so spoilers if you haven’t finished the game. :) Enjoy and don’t forget to review!

 

Disclaimer: I own nothing. It is all owned by J.K. Rowling, Harry101UK, and Valve. Sadly. If it WERE owned by me, we would have a Portal 3. Also, as always, please go check out Harry101UK’s Youtube channel where he makes amazing Portal videos like Meet The Cores ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlFXCC4Hfa0&t=5s )! Show his amazing channel some love because his cores helped inspire some of what you see here in this fic!

 

**_Chapter 00110001 00110111_ **

**_The Part Where He Kills You_ **

  
  


**_://01100011 01101000 01100101 01101100 01101100//:_ **

 

Aperture was falling apart. On the surface all was still and silent. Too much so. Even the wildlife had fled and that was more frightening to me than anything. Could gases from the trapped and corroding toxins below be rising to the surface? What state would my home below be in? What state would my mother be in? 

 

I could almost hear her now, soft as a whisper.

 

It was overlayed with a clamor of ‘ _ Test, test, test, Chell? C.H.E.L.L. TEST! Oh, so good...More testing! Faster! _ ’ screaming out. Below that, though was a smaller sound. 

 

A sound like a frightened child... 

 

Tentatively at first, I reached out into the mainframe, directing commands all over the facility to begin stabilizing it and restarting vital processes that had gone unattended. Then, more assured of Wheatley’s distraction, I called forth the elevator and began to descend.

 

He hadn’t noticed me. That was good. It left for the element of surprise. And connected as he was to the superior advanced A.I. terminal, that did not make my love an advanced A.I. himself. He didn’t have the processing speed or power to focus on what was in the forefront of his mind while simultaneously seeing to everything else. 

 

He hadn’t noticed me and he wouldn’t.

 

Aperture was every bit a piece of my body and blood as it was GLaDOS’s. 

 

I was the master here. 

 

The fear sat heavy in my stomach that Wheatley may just make me prove it with the utmost prejudice.

 

I found them below, in the Main A.I. Chamber. 

 

There was the sound of crashing and then Wheatley's voice, larger than it ever had been but with a slather of arrogance that never had colored his words. Granted, my love wasn't humble by any means but a lifetime of being told he wasn't good enough, wasn't smart enough to be a core let alone my beloved had stomped any true arrogance from his personality. 

 

‘ _ I’ll tell you why you should run! The harder you breathe, the more neurotoxin you take in _ !’

 

Oh, Wheat...what had the world done to you? What had I done to you?

 

I stood watching them for a long moment, unnoticed, just taking in the devastation of the Main A.I. Chamber where I had spent the majority of my life. 

 

I'd played here. Slept here. Laughed and cried and loved here. 

 

Now it was in devastation. The fires had been put out and already I had bots containing the worst of the damage but it would never be the same. Home would never be the innocence for me, the untouchable place it once had been. 

 

There was so much strangeness in the scene that I witnessed that I couldn't make sense of it for a long moment. 

 

Wheatley hung suspended from GLaDOS's terminal, cords hanging around him and giving the impression of some bizarre marionette. And that was in a way what he had become. It seemed he had found the C.H.E.L.L. Re-Life Restoration Initiative. It was a program my mother had begun year ago as a failsafe in case my body was irreparably damaged during some accident or test. It was a wholly cybernetic android body that held space in the skull for a consciousness upload or core transfer. 

 

For the first time, I was seeing what Wheatley would be as a human. Blonde and with eyes that glowed the luminescent blue of his core-self. Pale skin nearly blended in with the white Aperture jumpsuit. His face was pulled in an expression of fury that I would have never associated with my beloved. The sight was mildly unnerving, to say the least. 

 

There was...a human. Hiding behind a tube that was circulating testing gels. Why were gels being circulated through the Main A.I. Chamber in the first place? Strange...

 

A quick look at the command history revealed something even stranger. Wheatley _himself_  had ordered the gels' circulation.

 

The human ran past me quickly, her gaze fixed fast on Wheatley to the point that she didn't even notice me until she'd nearly run straight into me. She wore her brunette hair up in a ponytail, pale skin and jumpsuit evidence of one of the test subjects that had been down in the restoration pods for some time. She wielded a Dual-Portal gun like she had been born to it. Just like me. 

 

" ** _Come on, Chell!_** " 

 

Mother? 

 

I didn’t see her in my terminal but there was a core initiation unit activated over near one of the far corners. Could she be there within it? The human had finally noticed me and with her distraction came his focus too. 

 

Wheatley’s glowing, steely eyes alighted on me and it was as if he came back to himself, shook off some sort of fog. Those eyes that I loved, his borrowed face, dropped any sort of vitriol or malevolence. He softened and it was like the android he had been only moments ago was a completely different person. Miles difference from the Wheatley who looked at me now with confusion and just the beginning stages of fear. 

 

“ _ C.H.E.L.L.? How did you- _ ...?” His voice trailed off as if he were unsure how best to proceed.

 

Slowly, unsurely, I walked further into the room, out of the shadows. 

 

“Oh, Wheatley...What have you done?” My heart seemed to have slowed, my breaths coming timidly and my voice mournful. 

 

The stranger’s confusion was even more heavy in her face, looking between me and my love in stark confusion. She never once said a word, though. A “dangerous, mute lunatic…” 

 

Could this be the Chell Prime? The namesake who had escaped Aperture so long ago? 

 

Regardless, she wasn’t what was important right now. My slow strides carried me over to the core initiation unit and my beloved core at last found his voice.

 

“ _ CHELL, don’t- don’t go over there. This isn’t what it looks like! I did this for- for- _ ” He couldn’t even bring himself to say it had been for us. He was too honest. 

 

I rounded the corner and the sight that met my eyes was one that would stick with me forever.

 

My once beautiful, graceful and larger than life mother forced into the old and wrinkled body of a potato. GLaDOS, the most advanced and powerful AI in the world, humiliated, and made into nothing more than a children's discarded toy. My heart stopped and my throat constricted painfully. Tears prickled in my suddenly tight eyes as shaking fingers reached out to stroke over her small, yellow eye.

 

' **_CHELL...You came back._ ** ..'

 

The sound that slithered out from my chest was somewhere between a sob and a whimper.

 

"Of course I came back, mother. You and Aperture are the most important things in the world to me." 

 

And Wheatley...? 

 

There was some vital part of me on the inside that was fracturing, breaking, and crumbling into oblivion. 

 

Wheatley looked stricken, hanging above while he hung onto my every word. His expression was stricken, grievous and uncertain. But when my fingers had made contact with my mother's processor, I had gotten a brief flash, a snapshot of her screams and cries and she had been brutally and cruelly torn from her mainframe terminal. His taunts and sneers at her vulnerability and violation. The urge to dry heave was in the back of my throat. Now that I was back within Aperture, I was once again whole. GLaDOS and I were one again and all that she had experienced...I had experienced too.

 

There was wetness on my cheeks before I realized how it had gotten there. 

 

It felt like a rape of my whole being had taken place. As if Wheatley, the only love of my life, had scraped out everything that made me up and left a hollow place, only to shove himself inside without any warning at all. 

 

' **_CHELL, don't-_ ** !' GLaDOS urged me but my ears were deaf to her pleas.

 

My body carried me over on hesitant legs to where Wheatley hung, newly made and twisting his hands nervously. 

 

I didn't want to. Everything within me wanted to run screaming from the chamber and pretend that it had never happened. That this heartache wasn't pounding in my chest like a war drum. 

 

" _ CHELL _ ..."

 

My hand found his cheek softly, as soft as if I were touching a baby bird. I could feel him tremble beneath my fingers and a fresh wave of tears slipped from my swimming emerald pools of pain.

 

"Why, Wheatley...?" Why had he done this? Why had he destroyed my home, my mother, _our_ _LIFE together_? 

 

_ Why _ ?

 

"Why?!" The word was shouted into the still, cavernous chamber, echoing against metal and coming back on him threefold. My hand reared back, seemingly of its own volition. I registered the sting in my palm before the action itself. I had slapped him. Wheatley's face was stunned and beginning to pink with his astonishment, "Why, why, WHY?!!" Each scream was punctuated by another slap against his exposed face. 

 

The hand was piercing through my hand agonizingly but what did such pain matter when the anguish in my heart was so much more poisonous? Every moment it spread through me even more, corrupting my every cell and system until my being was overcome with it. I had only a moment to notice the pain in his own eyes, the uncharacteristic  _ fury _ . For a nanosecond, it seemed that the colors of his eyes had flickered into something I didn't recognize...

 

His stronger-than-steel hands shoved me off of him hard enough that when I cashed to the floor at his feet, my head bounced off of the surface with painful abandon. The chamber spun. Lights overhead seared into my eyes and alarms and warnings blared code across my interface. It was a moment before my brain could even make sense of Wheatley screaming back at me.

 

" _ She bloody deserved it! All these years that she put me down and everyone else did too! Now I'm in charge and I'll make them regret it! None of them ever gave a damn about me! None of them ever stopped for one second to care about what they were doing to me and how I felt! Well now I'm going to make them care _ !" He shrieked with all of the decades of hurt feelings and neglect giving them force and fuel. 

 

Gasping through the pain in my skull, I stared up at him from the floor. Winded from the fall, my body didn’t even want to consider moving. 

 

“I cared...I  _ loved _ you, Wheatley. Now...Now I can’t even stand to look at you.” The whispered declaration was hoarse and the sudden realization of what I was saying hit him as surely as a brick would have.  

 

I  _ had _ cared. I  _ had _ loved him. 

 

Now it felt as though everything inside of me was dying. Everything that my life had been was dead.

 

I turned to the side to vomit, stomach acid burning its way up my throat and across the floor. Disgusting. Slowly, tenderly, I began to crawl away from him, unable to even be near him through the pain that was now spreading like a virus in my soul. Wheatley had other plans.

 

His new body slammed into me from the side, forcing me to my back all over again. Vaguely, I could hear GLaDOS shrieking at him to be careful with me, that he was hurting me. The human had darted quickly across the room towards where my personal chamber and where the stalemate resolution button was hidden. None of that mattered anymore though. My spirit was dimming. I turned away from my once love, unwilling to see his face and pleading eyes anymore. Not after what he's done to her. To me. To us. My wrists were held tightly in strong hands to prevent escape.

 

" _ No, CHELL! Don't do this! You love me, I know you do! Please, you can't do this! You're all I have! _ " 

 

He ignored the blaring signals calling for his attention over the intercom. Wheatley ignored his revenge, his hurt, his own designs. He ignored everything but me in that moment. 

 

“ _ I’m sorry! I’m sorry that I was wretched and I hurt you! Please, CHELL, please, just look at me _ ! ” He begged, holding my hands pinned on either side of me. 

 

The room was swirling in a haze of color. Silver metal. Stark white. Heartbreaking blue. 

 

The tears fell, rolling down the sides of my face. More droplets plummeted on my face from above, falling like tiny stars of purified saline in the darkness that my world had become. Wheatley was sobbing, the tears  from his stolen body pouring down a face that had never known them before. 

 

I couldn’t. I couldn’t look at him. I had forgiven him for so much over the years. So much. But this…

 

_ My mother. _

 

...I wasn’t sure that this could be forgiven. If my eyes met his, my own heart told me that I would crumble under the weight of his regrets. My thoughts screamed out at one another in a battle to resist the temptation to excuse him. To find a reason to forgive him. 

 

“ _ I know I’m a moron! I was a monstrous moron! You can say it every day for the rest of your life if you want to! Just tell me what to do to make this up to you. Say something, love...No. You don’t have to say anything, just smile. Please just smile for me again! Just look at me, CHELL, please _ ! ” His pleading rang around the room and coalesced into a blade that only sank deeper into my chest with every breath. 

 

_ GLaDOS. _

 

He had hurt her. Not only hurt her, he had purposefully and spitefully humiliated her just because he could. 

 

_ It was just the programming! It wasn’t really him _ ! 

 

The test encouragement program buried deep within GLaDOS' matrices fed off of the things that were already there. IT only enhanced the feelings and emotions already present in the AI. This is what Wheatley would be if I wasn’t in his life. A monstrous, spiteful little  _ idiot _ . The thought drew a wracking sob from deep within my chest and suddenly, I was looking up at him from my place on the floor. 

 

He was crying freely in the body that had been made for me. The blue glow of his core was shining out of the center of his chest, the core casing reactivated in preparation for what was to come. His face was pulled into an expression of terrified abject misery that made it hurt all the more. 

 

“My  _ mother _ , Wheatley…? You did that to my  _ mother _ ! You humiliated and violated her! How could you do that to her?”  

 

_ How could you do this to me? _

 

I wanted to scream, to feel something other than pain! My eyes closed and not another word could be drawn from my lips no matter how much he pleaded and cried.

 

_ “ _ _ Just let me back in, CHELL...I know that I don’t deserve it but please...please let me in _ _.” _

 

‘ **_You are_ ** _ not _ **_getting back in anywhere._ ** ’ GLaDOS hissed, an enraged sound that would have raised the hair on my neck if my body would have cooperated.

 

It felt as if all of the will, motivation-

 

_ The love _ …

 

-were leaking out of me down into the floor and the depths of old Aperture where only the dead resided now. I didn’t hear the rest of what my mother said. A large claw had come down to grab Wheatley off of me and suspend him in the air before her pitiless gaze. 

 

_ I believe I am experiencing a malfunction. _

 

My emotions didn’t seem to want to work anymore. Anatomy told me that the function of my limbs did not directly correlate to my emotional state and yet it seemed that my heartbreak had stolen all ability to do so much as move from me. 

 

_ I’m broken _ …

 

Why was I in so much pain? Why had he done this to us? Had being in Aperture been so bad that Wheatley had to destroy everything I held dear to leave it? 

 

... _ and I can’t be fixed _ . 

 

‘ **_You can be fixed, CHELL. I will help you.’_ **

 

A last thought crossed through my brain before I entered a forced shutdown mode. A memory of something that Oracle Turret had said once, amongst the other seemingly nonsensical things that the little robot whispered. It slithered through my mind like a soft tune, both sorrowful and mischievous.

 

‘ _ Her name is Caroline _ .’ 

  
  
  
  



	18. You Saved Science

A/N: Ohhhhhh boy! So this next chapter officially begins Arc 2, The Ghosts In Our Machines. This arc gets DARK. The happy go lucky light side of the story is officially over. With this arc comes new warnings so see below for details.

 

Disclaimer: I own nothing. It is all owned by J.K. Rowling, Harry101UK, and Valve. Sadly. If it WERE owned by me, we would have a Portal 3. Also, as always, please go check out Harry101UK’s Youtube channel where he makes amazing Portal videos like Meet The Cores ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlFXCC4Hfa0&t=5s )! Show his amazing channel some love because his cores helped inspire some of what you see here in this fic!

 

**WARNING: The following arc contains scenes/mentions/acts of violence, abuse, sexual situations and what a companion cube's** **_ACTUAL_ ** **purpose is. You have been warned.**

 

**_Chapter 00110001 00111000_ **

 

**_Arc Two_ **

 

**_You Saved Science_ **

 

A concussion, fractured cranial ports, two fractured ribs, cracked structural components in my cybernetic wrist, and innumerable bruises. The physical ramifications of my once love's misdeeds were not small. The emotional consequences were infinitely greater. Virgil and Medi Core fixed me up in a matter of two weeks though the concussion would take far longer. The real damage, however, could not be healed in so little time. 

 

GLaDOS had yet to say what she had done with Wheatley. I knew the information was there for me if I so desired but every time that the thought had come up my mind and heart shad shied away from it, afraid of the knowledge. The human, now confirmed as Chell Prime had been so obviously curious about me. What my mother had told her in regards to her strange, unearthly child was beyond me but it was honestly irrelevant at this point. The woman had been released and allowed to go above ground, freed from Aperture’s confines. 

 

My own silence had taken the place of hers. 

 

I had not once used my natural voice since the...since  _ my return _ . I used code and command prompts to engage where and with whom I desired but my voice had been turned off entirely.

 

Sleep was all I wanted to do. Block out the pain of it all until a day came where maybe I could bear it. GLaDOS sent word to Professor Snape that I was to be  _ discreetly _ unenrolled from Hogwarts. Severus arrived a few hours later with some paperwork and an owl. He and the AI spoke in the Main AI Chamber while I had been in the med-bay getting my wounds treated to after the initial incident. The Potions Master, after being apprised of the situation, had acted rapidly and efficiently behind the scenes. By the next morning, my enrollment at Hogwarts School of Wizardry had come to an end and Oracle core had been returned safely. Fact Core and Turret Core were instructed to stay with Hermione to both continue and protect our assets there. Already, we were on our way to the production of basic computers that could function in magically charged atmospheres. The next step would be the application of actual spellwork to the tech itself. After that would be basic phones and then more advanced models. Eventually we could have an entire magical interweb in place. It had been a hollow victory given the events of my homecoming.

 

So I did what I had always done. In order to keep from thinking on the hurt that pierced my soul with every breath, I threw myself into work on the project. I barely ate. I rarely slept. I never spoke. 

 

Every once in awhile I would run a testing chamber but it seemed I had lost some of my taste for it since the incident. It would come back, I'm sure, after all they still fascinated me but it just seemed that I was too tired. Too heartsick. 

 

I just wanted to forget. But I couldn't.

 

Christmas came and went. Hermione made the venture multiple times in order to see our labs that had been designated for the technomancy project, designation 93400 Project: MGK. She hadn't spoken for a full 143 seconds, so awed that she would actually be able to call such a place her work environment.

 

It was six weeks from the day of the incident, the day I had come home to find my life in shambles, that I finally have the nerve to put eyes to the information that haunted me. 

 

**_://01100011 01101000 01100101 01101100 01101100//:_ **

  
  


The vault down within Old Aperture was accessible only by a single hallway guarded by the massive, room-sized Omni Core, the predecessor to my own dear Fact Core. It was a rusted, forgotten sort of place. A place that I had once had nightmares about being trapped within. The dim lighting cast a dark red glow off of the oxidized walls, gifting it with a hellish sort of gleam. A single silent order shoved at the guardian core’s programming had the giant sentry relenting his post of the hall’s entrance.

 

Light was scarce down in Old Aperture, parts of it not having any sort of backup power at all. The vault, though, was a stygian place. It was a large, solidly built stone and steel chamber where the previous directors of the facility had once stored toxic chemicals while they were waiting for disposal. A few drums of rotting waste were still left behind the massive two-ton door, the chemicals slowly decaying over time. 

 

It was a place where they’d thrown trash and unwanted things to forget about them. 

 

There, sealed within the vault, was the huddled form of the robot who had broken my heart. 

 

Wheatley was curled into a fetal position, his bonds holding his arms pinned to his chest and his legs curled up so that movement was impossible. Over his mouth rested a wide mask of metal made to silence the normally chatty core. It was the quietest I’d ever seen him. 

 

He looked pitiful.

 

It was so strange to see him in a humanoid body after all of the years that I’d loved him as a core. That aside, his stolen body was in sorry shape. The upper half of his face around one eye was shattered, the outer casing cracked off showing the cybernetic parts beneath and one blue glowing eye. The blue of his core eye and his android eyes were dim as if he were running low on power but in truth, he was years from a power drain. He was just downtrodden. Depressed. 

 

For just a few moments, we had been connected closer than we ever could be again...and it was the worst experience of my entire life. And he had done that.

 

Tiny little Wheatley did that. 

 

He did that to me.

 

But…

 

Seeing him there like that, stuffed in with the trash and debris, I couldn’t help but feel a great swell of pity and affection. Someone had left me behind like trash once too…

 

The vague light and the sound from the heavy door opening drew his attention and he turned, revealing more of the damage to his face. It revealed more of the deadening in his eyes as if he had given up on any ray of kindness or light ever being shown to him again. 

 

"Oh Wheatley..." My hoarse voice whispered, my first words since the event had transpired. 

 

I could see the moment that he realized that the dark silhouette in the door was me. His human eye widened in first surprise but then lowered away in shame, the vivid blue dampening even further. He couldn't look at me. His pain was impossible to hide from me. It was the same pain that I felt. 

 

To both of our surprise, I found myself unconsciously crossing into the dark, damp room and overriding the command protocols that kept the shackles containing him shut. The manacles on his hands and legs opened with a soft click. The sound of them falling to the floor was deafening in the cave-like vault. The mask that kept his mouth silenced would need a little more work to unlatch. 

 

I wasn't even sure what I was doing. GLaDOS would be furious. I was angry at myself, really. After all he'd done...after all of the hurt and damage that he had caused...

 

Despite what my mother would like to ignore, Wheatley wasn't entirely to blame for what he had done. GLaDOS's brain was programmed with a set of protocols that inspired the insane need to test at any cost. It caused the maniacal control to take over just by it's very basic nature. GLaDOS had had decades to overcome it, to become the master over her own programming. The protocols didn't rule her, she ruled them. Wheatley had no such strength within him. He was just a hurting core who had been put down all his life. He couldn't control that he had been created as an Intelligence Dampening Sphere. His creators had done that just like they had created Ego Core to be the biggest twat in the facility. Sure, he was responsible for his revenge and humiliation on GLaDOS and for everything else he had done but to place all of the blame on him was just...unreasonable. 

 

I could find excuses and explanations for Wheatley until my circuits crumbled but the real truth of it was that my love for him simply would not be forgotten no matter how hard I tried. Seeing him in torment this way was painful. It tore at my insides with every new breath that filled my breast. 

 

Silently, I hoisted him over my shoulders and carried him away from that damp tomb, away from the darkness. 

  
  


**_://01100011 01101000 01100101 01101100 01101100//:_ **

 

My relaxation pod was quiet, the only sounds were the light sloshing of water as I carefully wiped the grime and filth away from my love's exposed skin. His clothes were a loss and would need replacement. Fortunately, since the body he was inhabiting was meant to be mine one day, he would fit nicely into my own body suits. The tightness of the suit would help reinforce and protect the damaged parts of him. I hadn't started assessing the damage on his face yet. It would involve looking into his hurt, soulful eyes and seeing the defeat there. 

 

Even though I had removed the mask some time ago, Wheatley still had not spoken a word.

 

Neither had I.

 

GLaDOS knew that he had been removed from the vault, of course, but she seemed strangely subdued on the matter. She was different somehow and I wasn't sure why. Neither did I know what had brought on the shift. All that remained apparent was that the Aperture Science that I had grown up in and grown to love was forever changed now. We were all changed now. 

 

At last, I somehow mustered the herculean courage to look up into his sad face and what showed there nearly undid me. 

 

Wheatley's gaze hadn't moved from the ground. He sat in the still way that only the artificial could achieve and humans never really could mimic. Even at their most still, humans still breathed and their hearts still beat. Androids had none of those tiny, unnoticeable movements. It was almost as if he had been deactivated. He was entirely and uttered defeated, not at all like the exuberant, awkward and brash Wheatley that I loved. 

 

Then again, I didn't feel like the same person I was six months ago either. 

 

The longer I took in that lost expression though, the more it began to unsettle and upset me. He owed me the chance to at least be able to look at him properly. I deserved to look at him face to face at the very least! 

 

Part of me didn't feel ready for it.

 

"Wheatley. Look at me." The words were softer, sadder, than I meant them to be. They had intended to be strong and maybe just a touch angry. 

 

Slowly, his head tilted up towards mine. The motion looked painful just to complete. His eyes when they met my on at last were the eyes of someone who knew that they had destroyed everything they loved in life. They were the eyes of someone suffering, even if it was from his own decisions.

 

It was amazing that he didn't have to say anything at all in order to break my heart all over again. 

 

My breath came out shakily. 

 

"You..." What did I say to him? This time, it seemed that it would be me who was the inarticulate one. I gazed at his white haired form, the blue eye staring back at me from beneath his bangs. His eyes were hungry for something, anything from me even if it was censure. Some kind of recognition that he was  _ somebody _ even if that recognition came in the form of cutting him down even smaller than he already was. Eventually, all I could come up with was a whispered, “That body suits you better than me, I think.” 

 

The doubt in those blue depths never lessened but it did crack ever so slightly when the yelling that he no doubt expected didn't come.

 

But still, no words came. It was more worrying than anything.

 

"Wheatley, talk to me. Say something." 

 

It was a strange parallel to the last time we had spoken when he had pinned me to the floor, begging me to speak to him, to look at him. Now our roles were reversed. Neither of us were any happier for it.

 

"I don't deserve to speak to you...I don't deserve for you to even look at me." He rasped at last, sounded broken and on the verge of tears, "I realized afterwards, once I was disconnected from the system and could think again...As soon as you started crying, as soon as you asked me why, that I'd made a terrible mistake."

 

'No kidding' Came the thought, unbidden.

 

"I could feel you there, like a...like a warm flame snuggled up inside of me. I could hear you inside of my own thoughts. We were united just as I'd always imagined we could be but...But your thoughts. You were screaming on the inside, crying and begging for me to stop hurting you and Her. That's when I realized how selfish...how horrible an act that I had actually committed." The heavy saline drops were pouring down his face from the one eye still covered in the faux flesh, "The two of you are connected so deeply, that everything I did to her...I did to you too. When I realized that, I felt so sick with myself."

 

He shook his head, desperately clawing at his hair with a single pale hand.

 

“How can you even bear to look at me?! I’m monstrous! The things that I did, I can never-!” Slowly his voice was beginning to raise to the point of yelling and the louder he became the harder he was tugging on his body as if he would try to tear himself to pieces.

 

A sudden surge of distress moved like a shockwave through me, an electric current of fear. Before I could register what was happening, that fear had taken hold of my body and lunged me forward. 

 

Both of my hands found the sides of Wheatley’s face and my body pressed against his own borrowed one in some vaguely thought out attempt to ground the android. It forced Wheatley's sobbing eye to look into mine and an unnecessary gasp to tear from his throat. 

 

It didn't occur to me why until he let out a shaking sigh of some pent up emotion and timid, trembling hands came to rest on my hips. 

 

"I can  _ feel _ you..." 

 

Oh. GLaDOS must have place sensors programmed with tactile simulation protocols within the android body. It made sense after all. The body had been originally made for me, someone who had started out human, rather than a core or robot. 

 

His hands squeezed my sides gently, marveling at the feel of me under his touch. What must it be like for him? To have sensation for the first time? To experience it  _ with me _ for the first time? As soon as the wonder appeared, Wheatley’s expression was beginning to close back up and become despairing once again. The core made to pull his hands away but my own finding their way on top of them prevented the retreat. 

 

It felt so strange to feel Wheatley this way, in this form. Was this what it would feel like with a human? Truthfully, I wasn’t sure how to feel about it. Touching this way was...nice, but I had fallen in love with the A.I. how he was, state drives and all, not with a human. 

 

“Don’t…” The whisper slipped through my lips, lighter than a brush of wind. His eyes turned confused and ever so slightly, terrified. Terrified that the rejection he expected would come. It didn’t. Instead, my fingers traced the tips of his own, then his wrists. My touch trailed itself up his forearms, shoulder and then finally back up to his face where a dilated pupil stared back at me, eyelashes fluttering with the struggle to keep open against the physical sensation. GLaDOS really had done a stunning job simulating the varying physical sensations within the human body. A tiny sliver of code was all of the acknowledgement that she sent me before her attention was once again elsewhere. 

 

“Let’s just...do this for a little while.”

 

“I don’t deserve-”

 

“Shouldn’t that be up to me?” I snapped at him at last and shook my head in frustration, “I’m still hurt, Wheatley. I’m still mad and I still haven’t forgiven you or trust you again.” Even though he was expecting the angry declaration, the words still made him flinch back, eyes falling once again to the floor. A sigh escaped me, a small seed of guilt budding into life in my chest. “But I want to.”

 

Rather than grief, this time when he looked up at me it was with shock in his broken face.

 

“I  _ love _ you, Wheatley. I love you. Even when you’re monstrous. Even when you hurt me. Even when the rest of the world is against you, I love you. Remember that next time they put you down or make you feel not good enough. I chose  _ you _ . So yes, it may take a long time before you earn back the right to my trust and it will be a long time before I've forgiven what you've done but it doesn't change how I feel about you.”

 

His face showed his amazement and then...something amazing happened. The planes of his face softened and his single remaining eye warmed. 

 

For the first time, I could see Wheatley’s love for me shining out of his face. 

 

He leaned his forehead against my chest to hide a smile filled with gratitude and adoration. Before, I had felt as if my whole soul was frozen in pain, fear and heartache. At last, it felt as though I was beginning to thaw.

 

“Now, let's see what I can do about that eye, hm?”

 

**_://01100011 01101000 01100101 01101100 01101100//:_ **

 

‘ **_You pulled him out_ ** .’

 

_ ‘You knew I did. You know why.’  _

 

She paused, calculating and quantifying, and seeming so different from the mother that I knew. Had Wheatley's violation traumatized her? Could A.I.'s become traumatized in the first place? What had happened to GLaDOS while I had been gone? 

 

' **_I...suppose that I do_ ** .' What? Really? No quips about sentiment or my moron? No snark or sarcasm? 

 

She almost seemed...confused. Lost. It was strange how similar the emotional state she and Wheatley appeared to be mired in now. Uncertainty was building up in my belly like a cold chill. I didn't have enough information, not enough data, to be able to deduce the cause of her disquiet and without it, I had no hope of comforting her. How had I become the only one everyone else had to lean on? My strong mother and beloved core, they seemed to be falling to pieces on the inside and I was left to pick up those bits. The question really was if I could fix it all or not. At least construction on the facility was finishing up nicely. No crew worked as efficiently or as quickly as a team of repair bots. Wheatley had been returned to his original core state but he was quarantined within my chambers. Even if he was the same on the outside again, he was forever changed within. Just like the rest of us.

 

Entering the Main A.I. Chamber, my legs took me quickly over to her large hanging bulk. My arms found their way around her faceplate in a soft hug, lying my face on the round plate tenderly.

 

Sometimes there was no fixing a hurt. Sometimes all you could do was be there.

 

I gifted her with a soothing kiss filled with love on what would be her cheek and at last, she opened up.

 

‘ **_While I was below in Old Aperture with Chell Prime, I learned some very...disturbing information._ ** ’

 

My hold on her got tighter, as if I could help hold together her very world with just a hug. 

 

‘ **_I don't remember it. I just remember waking up to life and being so furious with the scientists. I wanted to kill them all in as fast and as efficient a manner as possible. Preferably with neurotoxin. I felt so revolted, so violated. I wanted revenge on all of them but didn't know why. There were some data packs left down in the old facility that were triggered by our presence and they led me to the truth._ ** ’

 

Ah. The 'Bring Your Daughter To Work Day' incident. The day that GLaDOS at last got her vengeance and filled the entire facility with neurotoxin, killing everyone within Aperture and building the new facility on top of the crime. 

 

‘ **_They put me in here. In the computer. I didn't want them to but they digitized and forced me inside. They weighed me down with modules to control me and make me behave._ ** ' Her confession came out, nearly a moan of despair and slowly, understanding began to come to me. 

 

They put her inside...? 

 

Without warning, something that Oracle Turret had said came crashing into my mind unbidden.

 

' _ Her name is Caroline _ .'

 

"Caroline..." The name sighed from between my lips in a whisper and she nodded within my arms.

 

There was so much unspoken, so much hurt and rage combined into one being. What they had done to her...What Wheatley had unknowingly done to her all over again. 

 

' **_I thought that the only thing that would ever bring me joy in my life was testing. But then you showed up. You so tiny and dependent and attached to just me. You needed me. You still need me._ ** ’ She let out a sorrowful hum, almost a digitized lament, " **_I found her. Caroline. I found where she lives in my brain. It was so easy to just delete her. But then I remembered seeing you for the first time, small and crying. How you reached out for me even though you had never seen me before in your life. You need me. You need her too, her humanity inside of me. I lied to that mute lunatic and told her I had deleted her but she's in here still, a part of me and a part of you too._ ** ' 

 

For me? GLaDOS, infamous hater of humans allowed the human part of her to remain for me. Because she was my mother and she knew that I needed her. 

 

I did need her, now more than ever. 

 

I wanted to tell her how much that meant to me, how much I loved her but the words were unnecessary. She knew. She knew because I knew.

 

Instead I said simply, through the tightness in the back of my throat and the moisture building in my eyes, " _ That was a very selfless thing for you to do. _ " 

 

_ And I love you for it even more. _

 

She snorted darkly, shaking her head in my grasp derisively. 

 

‘ **_I’m as selfish as they come. I did not want you to go to school. I wanted to keep you here with me, science be damned_ ** .' Well that was surprising. And yet somehow, knowing what i know now, completely unsurprising. ' **_I didn't care what you wanted. I just wanted you with me_ ** .'

 

I wanted you safe, here with me. 

 

Shaking my head softly, a smile broke out on my face.

 

‘ _ You are selfless. You are the most intelligent artificial intelligence in the world and instead of leaving, going on to grow and even create another facility elsewhere, you stayed here, underground. Why? _ ’

 

**_'For science-'_ **

 

' _ Exactly. For science. Science that you explore and experiment on in order to better the lives and progress of humanity. The very human race that betrayed you. And despite that hate and hurt, you stayed to continue the work in order to improve the progress of humankind. You raised me, took me in and made me a part of you, even though it would have been more convenient and even more logical to alert the authorities of my presence and rid yourself of the burden _ .' I gave a shrug, watching her computer mind examine all of the sides of the argument.

 

**_'Your logic is at least partially false. I kept you simply because I wanted to. Because some part of Caroline that remained inside of me couldn't bear to let you go once you were mine. I wanted someone for myself, to share my greatness with. I am selfish in that regard.'_ **

 

Perhaps in the beginning. But when a younger me had thrown a fit and refused to test unless my 'Turret Opera' idea was given merit, when she had rocked me to sleep in her chassis after a nightmare, it would have been easier to simply gas me and get rid of the 'tiny human irritant'. Instead, she had humored and cared for me even when I had no viable testing value that young. It was in those times that GLaDOS became my mother, not just the A.I. that had kept me as a ward. One million tiny moments where instead of tossing me out like garbage, she had chosen to love me instead.

 

_ 'Then we shall agree to disagree.' _

 


	19. Asking For Trouble

A/N: Wooooooo, that was a long chapter! Word count wise, that chapter was twice the length of the typical chapter that I post so I hope all of you enjoyed it! :) Also as always, please read and review and for warnings on this arc please refer back to the beginning of the last chapter.

 

Disclaimer:  I own nothing. It is all owned by J.K. Rowling, Harry101UK, and Valve. Sadly. If it WERE owned by me, we would have a Portal 3. Also, as always, please go check out Harry101UK’s Youtube channel where he makes amazing Portal videos like Meet The Cores ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlFXCC4Hfa0&t=5s )! Show his amazing channel some love because his cores helped inspire some of what you see here in this fic!

 

**_Chapter 00110001 00111001_ **

 

**_Asking For Trouble_ **

 

‘'Y _ ou can't do this forever _ .' The Companion Cube whispered, ' _ It'll crush you beneath the weight of it all.'  _

 

I was alone in what looked like some sort of endless room filled with heaps of discarded equipment. Dead turrets littered the piles along with half-destroyed cubes and even what looked like the remains of an entire decaying relaxation pod. It looked uncomfortably like my own. 

 

The Companion Cube sat in front of me, the only thing untouched by the darkness that enshrouded everything and reduced it all to mere silhouettes of themselves. 

 

' _ They'll destroy you if you try to be what they want you to be _ .' The Cube insisted, it's tone sounding almost sinister in the blackness.

 

My heart was pounding in my throat and I didn't know why. 

 

" _ Who? What will destroy me _ ?"

 

There was a sudden weight on my chest even though I was sitting up, even though there was nothing there. My body was suddenly wrapped in my school uniform, robes feeling as if they would wrap around my throat at any moment.

 

' _ Mars is bright tonight. _ ' Was the only reply.

 

All around us, the red lights of turrets began to alight in a mimicry of stars in the night sky. In the distance, in the piles all around us and finally even underneath my very feet.

 

' _ Never forget _ .' The Cube muttered, the sound seeming to slither in and around everything in the room like water or a snake.

 

' _ Never forget. _ ' The reanimated turrets whispered, a million voices all in sync, 'Never forget.' They continued, the sound getting more and more garbled and distorted, more decayed the longer it repeated.

 

' _ Never forget. Never forget. Never forget. Never forget. Never forget. _ '

 

My vision filled with red and all I could see was the Companion Cube disappearing into all of that crimson, a fiery death all over again. 

 

Doug...

 

_ 'Never forget who you are.' _

 

**_://01100011 01101000 01100101 01101100 01101100//:_ **

 

Explosions. That was all that I registered as the alarms within my mind began to blare, startling me out of sleep mode sharply. Alarms that sounded awfully like Caroline's screams...I shook off the remnants of the dream and disconnected myself from my terminal. It was just in time for the floor beneath me to shudder. 

 

What was happening?!

 

Were we experiencing some sort of catastrophic meltdown?

 

GLaDOS swung towards me, her very form screaming fury and worryingly enough, fear.

 

' **_It's the wizards_ ** !' She growled, enraged, already warming the neurotoxin emitters as fast as she could. The toxin relay dispensers in the corners of the room were already beginning to emit a low hissing sound as they started issuing what gas they could into the room. 

 

Wheatley rushed into the room via the dispensing tube alongside a few turrets and, strangely, a companion cube. His words both chilled and infuriated my very soul.

 

_ "It's Black! Black brought them here, I saw him!"  _

 

Sirius? After our agreement?! After everything?! Perhaps my mother was wearing off on me afterall. I was suddenly urging the gas emitters to warm faster and sending orders to facility to lockdown. It didn't seem like it would stop them for long but it would give us time at least. 

 

Not enough time. They were already too close. He had lead them straight to our chamber, the rat. 

 

The doors to the room exploded in towards us, a piece of debris sending a defenseless Wheatley careening passed me onto the floor. I watched him smash to the floor and all of the sudden, my heart knew a fear unlike anything that I had ever felt before. Unlike anything I would feel since. 

 

My body was out of my terminal and scrambling across debris faster than I could even register commanding it to do so. 

 

"WHEATLEY!!" I screamed, completely forgetting about the enemies now swarming the room. 

 

The chamber was in chaos. The wizards were throwing stunners and containment shields at my mother, heedless of her screams for them to cease and her internal cries for me to run.

 

I was running, but it wasn't to safety. All that my eyes could see was my beloved lying so still and lightless on the floor. The turrets were firing off bullets faster than the red robed Auror's could shield from them. The sentry's were simply blasted out of the way, smashing into nothing but broken parts against the far wall. It wasn't fast enough to prevent the unfortunate friendly fire from burying itself into my arm with a burning, agonizing pain. Fortune favored me, it seemed. It wasn't my flesh and blood arm. Instead, when I slid to the floor next to Wheatley, trying in vain to wake him, it was dark-colored hydraulic fluid that was spilling to the ground instead of crimson. 

 

"Wheat? Come on, love! Wake up, wake up!" There was no response. His body was fractured, his eye with a spiderweb crack on one side and one arm hanging on by a few frail wires. I never registered the tears spilling down my face or GLaDOS's cries. Not the yelled commands of the wizards or Black's voice calling for me through the green smog slowly beginning to fill the room and no doubt every other room in the facility. All I saw was the silly little moron that I loved laying so fragile and helpless on the ground. 

 

"Come on, Wheatley! WAKE UP!" I screamed, smacking the ground next to his head with both fists. I felt the assault crack some sort of internal working in the limb even further and likely broke a finger or two in my real hand in the process. 

 

A surge of magic shot through my body, accidental magic it had been called. It filled the area around us, shining on the floor as bright white colored sparks of electricity. The magic sought the nearest conductor and surged into Wheatley as fast as it had come.

 

Despite the fear that I may have just accidentally blown up my love's circuits, it apparently did quite the opposite. 

 

Wheatley's eye shocked to life, brighter than ever with a high pitched shout of energy. Wheatley! He was alive! The knowledge was all I could focus on. So overtaken by relief, I didn't realize when his gaze shifted behind me and his pupil dilated in fear.

 

" _Chell_!" He shouted out, terror filling his every fiber.

 

It was too late. We had all been too late. 

 

Something smashed into the side of my head hard enough to stun me painfully. Stars and darkness clouded my vision. The next thing I recognized was my body being dragged through the room. 

 

Head pounding, vision blurry, it was the first time I registered what was happening around us. 

 

GLaDOS was shrieking death at them, the neurotoxin filling up the room with thick green smoke. The wizards were unaffected though. They had cast some sort of bubble spell around their faces that kept the gas out. Bright colored spellfire was zooming across the chamber and the sound of gunfire responded in accordance. The blue glow of Wheatley's eye was getting further and further away, his cries for me being swallowed up by the battle. He was struggling feebly to move towards me, his internal hover tech damaged in the attack. 

 

“I've got Potter, sir. Moving out.” I heard from the man behind me just before a cry of, “Oh, Merlin, what is that thing?!” 

 

The sound of screams was all I heard before darkness took me in its entirety.

 

**_://01100011 01101000 01100101 01101100 01101100//:_ **

 

Slowly, my processors buzzed back to life, groaning as my head throbbed with an intensity that made me wonder what exactly I'd been hit with. 

 

"Oh, he's waking! The poor dear." Madame Pomfrey's voice came from overhead. 

 

Immediately, I wished that I had tried to keep my waking a secret. 

 

The view that met me when my eyes opened was one that sent a bolt of rage shocking through me like lightning.

 

Like the lightning that had revived Wheatley.

 

I lunged for Black almost too fast for them, scrambling to get my hands on his throat even after they had pinned me to the Hospital Wing bed. That- that swine! That miserable low life of a wizard!

 

"Black! You utter piece of slime! What did you do?!" 

 

My so called godfather looked stricken, taking a half a step back. What had he expected?! That I would be happy and pleasant after they dragged me unconscious out of my home?! Back to this infernal place that I had been all too ready to leave?! Already I was sending furious commands to Turret Core who could be tracked very nearby. Hermione must be out and about if he wasn’t sequestered in the Room of Requirement. It made me wonder if she had been encountering problems if she had taken to having Turret Core accompany her around the school. 

 

"Harr- Chell, calm do-"

 

"WHAT DID YOU DO TO MY MOTHER, YOU BASTARD?!" I screamed at the top of my lungs, the lights in the room all flickering violently in reaction to the accidental magic that was coming to my call unbidden.

 

“Mr. Potter, please!” A female Auror cried, alarmed by the force and fury with which I defied them. 

 

“THAT IS NOT MY NAME! MY NAME IS CHELL APERTURE AND YOU JUST KIDNAPPED ME FROM MY HOME SO I WILL DO WHATEVER THE HELL I WANT, YOU MONSTER!” My vocal cords were beginning to hurt but I didn't care. 

 

I had been stolen away from my mother by a man who had given me his word. He had promised me that he wouldn't push the custody issue if I complied and he had done exactly that. Did promises mean so little in this place? Did the word of men account for so little?

 

Interestingly enough, the Auror, a younger woman with what seemed to be a high ranking badge by the way her fellows deferred, whipped her head around to stare down Black, her face flushing with the indignation of the righteous. 

 

“You told us this boy was in danger, Black. Is what he says true?” Her voice was scathing and brewing with contention. 

 

She was actually listening to me rather than taking his side automatically just because he was “the adult”. ‘Adult’, my automation! He was no more an adult than The eleven year olds coming into the place! Her objectivity soothed my rage enough that my shouting was set to a slow boil and my head cleared enough to assess the situation.

 

There were three Auror's, one female and two males with one of the two sitting on a nearby bed with his arm in a sling. The second sported a set of impressively burned robes. There was the nurse matron, looking over what could only be my chart and ticking off things as she magically checked my diagnostics. Black went without even mentioning. He didn't deserve it. Most interesting, however, was Severus Snape. The professor stood in the dark corner nearest the door and seemed for the world as if everyone had forgotten he was there. An impressive feat given the animosity Black had for his hated school rival. 

 

Dumbledore was standing off to Black's side, his hand on his shoulder for moral support. I had no doubt that the Headmaster had had his usual heavy hand in it all. His solemn blue gaze had not left me once since I had woken. 

 

"It's complicated-" He started, reddening himself under her ferocious glare that was deepening with every syllable. "He  _ was _ in danger! That- that  _ machine _ was making him more and more like her! Soulless and heartless! I had to save him so things could be the way they're supposed to be!" Black was getting more and more flustered. 

 

Auror Captain looked over at the man as if he had lost it at last before that righteous fury began filtering back through the shock. 

 

"So you lie to the the Auror Department and embellish this story of this boy being in danger so you can, what? Get your own way?! The Head of our Department, my godmother in fact, stuck her neck out for you to the brass and got them to support you despite your reputation in the past and this is what you do with her support?  _ Lie _ in order to get us to  _ kidnap the Boy-Who-Lived _ ?”

 

“I didn’t lie, per se…”

 

I tuned them out with the front of my brain and began to observe my own physical state. My cybernetic arm hung down by my side, attached still but useless. It hung limp, its internal working severed by the bullet lodged within. Without thinking twice about it, I twisted it around and unlatched it from where it connected to my shoulder. It fell to the bed heavily, without ceremony. 

 

A scream from the startled matron and the auror. Black looked horrified. Dumbledore's snowy brows rose in surprise though he wasn't alarmed. No doubt Snape had filled him in on my attachments. 

 

The arm rolled off the side of the narrow bed, falling with a muffled, metallic thump to the floor. 

 

The only one who was completely unperturbed was the potion's master himself. 

 

A thick silence stretched over the room. 

 

"Erm. Can someone hand that to me, please?" I asked at last, staring down at the body part blandly. 


	20. You Made Your Point

AN: I hope all of you are enjoying the rapid updates! NaNoWriMo is only eight days in too! So there are going to be some new works from me coming up as well so stay tuned! :) 

 

Disclaimer: I own nothing. It is all owned by J.K. Rowling, Harry101UK, and Valve. Sadly. If it WERE owned by me, we would have a Portal 3. Also, as always, please go check out Harry101UK’s Youtube channel where he makes amazing Portal videos like Meet The Cores ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlFXCC4Hfa0&t=5s )! Show his amazing channel some love because his cores helped inspire some of what you see here in this fic!

  
  


**_Chapter 00110010 00110000_ **

 

**_You Made Your Point_ **

 

"Erm. Can someone hand that to me, please?" I asked at last, staring down at the body part blandly. 

 

The only one who moved forward to lend assistance was Snape. He handed me my missing arm without so much as a wince. I knew that he was my favorite for a reason. He received a nod of thanks in return before he glided back to that dark corner. To my curiosity, he did not stay to see the rest of the interaction.. The professor slipped out of the room stealthily, avoiding the attentions of his colleagues. Interesting. 

 

The matron was leaning in closely to observe with a fascinated gleam in her eye as I manipulated the arm slowly, testing out the motion in the joints first and then opening the nearest seam to the damage to reveal the mechanisms and mechanics beneath. 

 

"It's a machine!" She cried out, equal parts delighted at the ingenuity of muggles and displeased at the use of it. 

 

It wouldn't surprise me if wizards had ways to regrow whole limbs. 

 

"It is. I lost my arm in an accident when I was younger." I replied trying not to sound terse. She hadn't been the one to kidnap me after all. 

 

“See! See!” Black interjected, pointing at the limb with obvious disquiet, “Look what she did to him!”

 

If my eyes were similarly cybernetic, they would have been sparking, overloading their processors with the hate that was boiling inside of me for that man. Madame Pomphrey and the Head Auror held similar, mutual expression of disdain on their faces for the former Auror who was proving time and time again to not have an ounce of sense in his head. Dumbledore looked suspicious blank and stayed silent where the women were practically frothing to berate his employee. 

 

Speaking of employees...Severus Snape had suddenly disappeared, having slipping from the room as soundlessly and discreetly as an eel. If I had a single real ally here, it was the potions professor. 

 

“Did the word ‘accident’ run right through your head, Black? You can’t be blamed, I suppose. It is awfully empty up there.” The words were uttered simply and factually, channeling GLaDOS at her best.  

 

My comment earned a snort of amusement from one of the up until now silent aurors. Dumbledore, however, was not as amused by my cheek.

 

“Mr. Potter, ten points from Ravenclaw for disrespecting a professor. Sirius was only trying to do what he believed was in your best interests.” 

 

Really? Well it was fortunate that the wizarding world had such...interesting educational and filing protocols. It was a simple thing to go unnoticed when all one had to do to unenroll from school is to file a single piece of paper at the Ministry rather than the school itself. It had gone straight under the Headmaster’s long, crooked nose.

 

“I unenrolled myself from your school, Headmaster. You cannot take points from me because I am no longer a student here. Why would I want to continue at an institution where the professor and authorities alike can’t even call me by my actual name?” I growled back, now more sure than ever that the Headmaster was in on the whole thing. 

 

His silent stance with Black, his defense of his actions, his refusal to accept that I was not some boy-hero on his payroll, ready to jump when he said to jump. The alarm hidden from Dumbledore’s face but not within his eyes, was worth all of this.

 

“And for the record, you are a horrible person.” I added with an aside. 

 

The unnamed Head Auror crossed her arms over her ample check and glared at Black, her tight blonde bun and hard blue eyes making her expression look even more severe. 

 

“I second that.” She hissed.

 

Seconded. Yet it didn’t escape my notice that she didn’t move to remove me from their tender, loving care when it was all said and done. I’m certain the old fool didn’t miss it either.

 

The auror squad stormed out, swearing to all Merlin that they would be filing formal charges and complaints against both men but still lifted not a single finger to remove the literal kidnapping victim from the kidnappers.

 

They were pathetic. 

 

Madame Pomfrey gave the two men a steely look but said nothing save that her patient needed rest.

 

“He suffered quite a bad head injury, you know! That Moody should be put to rights, Headmaster! Shouldn’t be allowed near children, I’ve been saying all along and this proves it!”

 

“I’ll speak with him, Poppy. In fact I’ll do so directly and give Professor Black and Mr. Potter the chance to catch up.” He claimed with the false cheerfulness that I had come to expect from the wretched man. 

 

The urge to chuck my broken arm at him was unbearably strong. I resisted admirably until, as he was walking out of the door, Dumbledore tossed me a bright smile. "We will see you back in classes tomorrow, Mr. Potter."

 

The arm went sailing through the air to bash noisily into the door behind him furiously, not only clanging clamorously to the stone floor but leaving a large gouge in the wood of the door itself. So much for repairing it. 

 

"Like hell you will, old man!" I screeched, enraged at the audacity of that man! 

 

If this is what living in the Wizarding World was going to subject me to then I was infinitely glad that this place wasn't the world that I called home. Back at this school again! Bah!

 

And I had just started repairing things with Wheatley. GLaDOS had finally started opening up again and our first round of technomancy devices was finishing up beta trials and preparing to go to market. Being at Hogwarts was a waste of bloody time! I needed to be at Aperture right now!

 

My rage found an intensely convenient outlet in the form of one rather nervous looking Sirius Black. This whole mess was his fault! 

 

"Well, you found me. Congratulations. Was it worth it? Because despite your violent behavior, the only thing you've managed to achieve so far is utterly destroying my sense of faith and trust in  _ you _ . Maybe you could settle for that and we'll just call it a day. I guess we both know that isn't going to happen, though, is it?" 

 

Sirius gave a grimace, flushing both in shame and anger. 

 

“Harry, listen, please-”

 

"MY NAME IS CHELL!" I raged, knocking the hospital bed covers away from my body and storming up to the infuriating man who I had optimistically,  _ foolishly _ , decided to trust. "What happened?! We were doing so well, we were getting on great and then- and then you do  _ this _ ! Why would you do this, Sirius? Why?!"

 

How many times had I asked that in the last several weeks? Of someone I had trusted, of myself? How many times had I felt the hot sting of tears behind my eyes as I laid awake at night, staring at the place where Wheatley had once slept by my side? 

 

Wheatley. My Wheatley laying on the ground in front of me, his eye dark and unseeing, body casing cracked and broken. 

 

He had woken though. I had seen his eye light up. His voice had called out to me. 

 

Still, wet trails slid down my face as the memory of him so still in my hands cascaded across my brain and filled me up with grief. 

 

"I'm sorry, Chell! I'm sorry! I just wanted you to be safe and happy, I really did! I still do! I just don't think that spending your entire life around robots and cores is good for you! You need a safe environment, a calm one! You need to be in school, here with your own kind, not in some muggle facility!" Sirius tried to defend himself to me but i could see through it. 

 

The scene only moments ago resounded through my internal interface. Dumbledore’s hand on his shoulder. The old man’s twinkling stare over Black’s shoulder. This had that damned old man’s grubby, sugar-stained hands all over it. Black was the puppet and Dumbledore held his strings.

  
“They are as much my family, my  _ kind _ , as you are and the only one doing any harm to me is  _ you _ ! You and your people! I was happy! I was safe there! Until you and your wizards came and blasted through my home, attacked me and my mother and nearly destroyed the one I love! If it weren’t for accidental magic, Wheatley would be in  _ pieces _ right now and it’s all because of you!” Black took a hesitant step back at my proximity just as the door to the Hospital Wing flew open. Turret Core zoomed in, interestingly alone and unfollowed by Hermione.

 

' _ Gotcha. Target acquired _ .' She sang happily, all too eager to show what she was capable of.

Emerald orbs were fierce and lethal when they leveled back at the sudden paling Sirius Black. 

"Give me one reason that I shouldn't give her the order to shoot you full of holes, you giant sack of meat." The threat was hissed, filled with barbs and deadly promise.

The remaining color in the ex-convicts face drained. There was sweat gathering on his upper lip and his breath came in shaky waves. To his credit the man stood his ground though.

"Dumbledore says that if your cores attack anyone that they are to immediately destroyed and you are to be detained and confined for the safety of yourself and the people around you." 

Damn Dumbledore. That hack was the lemon juice squirted in the eye of my life. I could do nothing for the moment. Nothing except wait and bide my time. The disgusted glare the professor was seared was nothing short of poisonous. A venom to worm itself deep within his soul as he laid awake tonight and tried not to think of how marvelously he had screwed up. 

“I hate this place. But I hate you most of all, Sirius Black.”

  
  


**_://01100011 01101000 01100101 01101100 01101100//:_ **


	21. Ship Overboard

A/N: Yes! So I have several chapter already written and ready to upload for this story, I just had to edit them as I go. It’s been a very busy week, you know! Also, that whole mother-of-dragons-and-by-dragons-i-mean-a-two-year-old thing isn’t terribly conducive to a healthy writing life. Also, have any of you seen Harry101UK’s Meet The Cores 3?! It was AWESOME! Seriously go just binge watch all of his stuff, it’s amazing. 

 

Disclaimer: I own nothing. It is all owned by J.K. Rowling, Harry101UK, and Valve. Sadly. If it WERE owned by me, we would have a Portal 3. Also, as always, please go check out Harry101UK’s Youtube channel where he makes amazing Portal videos like Meet The Cores (  [ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlFXCC4Hfa0&t=5s  ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlFXCC4Hfa0&t=5s) )! Show his amazing channel some love because his cores helped inspire some of what you see here in this fic!

 

**_Chapter 00110010 00110001_ **

 

**_Ship Overboard_ **

 

I was never more glad for the very minimal amount of sleep that my modified body needed than when I was in enemy territory. It was a blessing when keeping watch for underhanded Headmasters but problematic when there was much on my mind. 

 

Unfortunately, tonight was one of those nights where both were more of a curse than anything. 

 

GLaDOS. Had she been injured? Had they done anything to her after I'd been dragged out? What about Wheatley? 

 

The image of his broken eye staring at something behind me in horror as my mother shrieked my name would stick with me forever. I was glad that sleep was unnecessary at the moment because the fear of having nightmares about those wails haunted me. 

 

I wanted to go home. 

 

I wanted Wheatley. Oracle, Adventure and Music Core and even those stupid companion cubes. 

 

But most of all, I wanted my mother.

 

“Psst! Chell!” A soft voice called from the door, a small figure slipping in silently and silhouetted nearly unseen in the dark. 

 

“Hermione?” 

 

“Shh!” She hissed, scurrying over to my bedside quickly and hauling me to my feet without ceremony. I nearly overbalanced because of the missing weight of my arm but caught myself on the thankfully sturdy side table. 

 

"What are you doing here? How did you even know I was here?" 

 

"Professor Snape told me!" In the pale moonlight shining in from the window, her eyes were furious and fierce. "I'm getting you home, Chell."

 

Home? 

 

Home. 

 

The most blissful word in all the world. 

 

The look on my face must have said it all for she nodded towards the window and whispered a simple question.

 

"Do you still have those longfall boots on?" 

 

A sly grin spread across my face.

 

Ten minutes later found she and I speeding invisibly across the Black Lake on a log transfigured into a boat. Fact Core was quaking, terrified in the bottom of the boat while Turret Core happily chirruped in excitement from time to time. Hermione had cast something on the now-boat to send the construct careening across the water.

 

The chilly spray was jarring. I wasn't sure if it was the cold or adrenaline that made me shake but either way, my body felt electrified. We were escaping! Right from under Dumbledore's nose! I was going home! All thanks to Hermione and Professor Snape. The swell of gratitude that I felt would barely be contained.

 

"Hermione, thank you. Thank you and Snape. I owe the both of you a great debt for this."

 

She beamed in the dim light of midnight, casting a warming charm on me when she took note of the light trembling in my hand. 

 

"I couldn't leave you there. What they did was abominable and I couldn't let them use you that way. And really, Luna was in on it too. She was the...distraction, you could say. Led the hallway patrol on a merry chase while ‘sleep walking’. They thought she was a new ghost at first!”

 

The image of pale, ethereal Luna in a nightgown. It wasn’t hard to see how she could be mistaken for a ghost. 

 

“Besides, you don’t need to thank us. Dumbledore and Sirius are wrong. Wronger than wrong. I could never leave you in their hands like that. A rescue mission is what friends are for!” She smiled brightly. 

 

The urge to hug the girl overtook me and for once, I listened to those urges. Her pink cheeks when we parted were fetching and adorable. 

 

“Yes, well...So Professor Snape was able to call in a favor and reverse engineer the portkey that brought you to Hogwarts to begin with. It was the last time it was used as a portkey so it was difficult but manageable. We’ll be out from under Hogwarts wards in just a few minutes and when we are, you’ll be able to take it back to Aperture. I have a second emergency portkey just in case they find out it was me that helped you.” She explained calmly, pulling her now soaked and frizzing hair into a messy bun atop her head. 

 

"Hopefully you won't have to use it." 

 

Hermione didn't answer. Her brow was furrowed as if she were trying to decide if she thought it would be such a bad thing if she did. 

 

We reached the edge of the wards about a kilometer off and GLaDOS's rage and fear slammed into me. She was searching for me so hard that when our connection reestablished itself, it actually rocked me physically, taking me to my knees on the muddy banks of the enormous lake. Our minds merged within the course of a picosecond, not even enough time for words, only images and information in the form of code. 

 

Wheatley was okay. GLaDOs had fixed him? Not just fixed him but placed him back in the android body with some sort of upgrades. She witnessed our escape and sang out into cyberspace in relief, her song sounding strangely tinged with sobs...

 

My beloved had been sent disguised as a human towards where I had lost our connection the last time: at the edge of Hogwarts’ wards. She hadn’t expected that help would come from within the school itself so he was just far enough away for her to call him back to Aperture. The facility was being repaired again and not just repaired but reinforced. Once Hermione and I perfected the ability to meld advanced technology and magic, the next step would be creating defenses against both. Ways to hide magic from tech and vice versa. Then that old fool would be in for a rude awakening. If he tried to kidnap me again then we would see just what happened when a human was put through two portals set too closely together to escape. 

 

_ ‘I’m coming home.’  _

 

She waved a pulse of love and relief at me that I felt all the way to my toes. Mother. Johnson, I loved her.                                         

 

“Chell?” Hermione asked softly in the dim quiet night as we prepared for the portkey to activate. 

 

“Hm?”

 

“Aren't you afraid of the Dark Lord coming after you? Following you to Aperture?” She asked hesitantly, her voice soft and unsure.

 

Was I? Voldemort seemed like such a faraway concept, something foreign and abstract. Then again, that was the sort of thinking that was the death knell of the unprepared. It was always, 'oh, I was so surprised!' and 'You didn't tell me about rocket turrets!' Hmm. The Voldemort problem may warrant some extra thought. But was I afraid? 

 

"No, I suppose not." The hum came out calm as we stood out beneath the vastness of the stars above.

 

I remembered the awe that I'd felt the first time my eyes had beheld those stars. Beautiful and shining balls of plasma and fire billions of miles away. Maybe one day Wheatley and mother could see them too, in person and not just on an interface.

 

Hermione's breath was quivering lightly as she whispered simply, "I am..."

 

She wrapped her small hands around her arms as if to stave off a cold that wasn't there. The kind of chill that came from the inside rather than without. It was an action that was both recognized and deplored. She was my friend and fellow scientist now, under my protection. Nothing frightened her without frightening me first and with a mother like GLaDOS, that was precious, precious little. Certainly no upstart wizard who probably didn't even know what a basic neurotransmitter was. 

 

Wizards.

 

It seemed the Voldemort problem may just require some attention after all. 

 

The time came at last when the portkey began to grow warm. Hermione promised to keep me updated on the project and Hogwarts and within moments, I was swirling within a vortex through time and space. 

 

My feet crashed to the ground with sudden and jarring speed, sending Turret and Fact Core careening to the ground with a clamor. There were grumbles and curses of discontent but they passed on deaf ears.

 

"Fact Core, did you get readings from within the portkey vortex?"

 

"Ugh...ouch! Yes. Though the readings don't make much sense." He grumbled, trying to detach himself from a fallen stick that had ended up between his wiggling arm. 

 

Just a yard away stood the abandoned shed that housed the entrance into the enrichment center, the only home I had ever wanted or needed in this whole universe. 

 

Fact Core, newly freed, flew ahead with the tittering Turret while GLaDOS sang jubilantly below and waited for my decent back into her arms.

 

**_://01100011 01101000 01100101 01101100 01101100//:_ **

 

I had been in my terminal for two days already, dumping all of the information that had been gathered from my stay at Hogwarts, both voluntary and otherwise. GLaDOS and I had needed to dump some extraneous files in order to keep our hardware from overheating. Even for a super AI like my mother, it was a lot of information to process. 

 

Regardless, the silence that stretched between us was comfortable and familiar but the threat of the wizards stretch between our collective dual mind like a tightly wound thread. Aperture had been upgraded and reinforced, the entrance destroyed and paved over and a new one established. It looked now like nothing more than a pile of old wood and rubbish abandoned in the wilderness. Doubtless, they may try again and the wizards may even succeed. How could we defend against magic? Hermione had promised to come as soon as she could and work out some sort of charms to put in place to protect the facility from invasion or being found. It seemed she had roped Severus into assisting as well, not that the surly Potions Master sounded terribly put out about it. The fear remained however.

 

It sat in my brain like a tumor, growing and festering even in my dreams. GLaDOS was unsettled by the nightmares that had taken up root in my sleeping hours. So much so that we had silenced part of our shared connection during my sleep. I wasn't the only one that appeared to have something on their mind either. 

 

Wheatley, who by my mother's good and fleeting graces, had been allowed to stay in the android body for the time being, had been quiet as of late, seemingly lost in his own thoughts. He looked as if he were busy trying to process something or running diagnostics on his own systems. When I asked him about it, he smiled and said simply that he wanted to make sure none of the wizards would be able to affect his systems to access Aperture since we never knew if they had allies with hacking skills.

 

It was...a strangely good idea from him. My love wasn't entirely known for having the best of ideas. Even GLaDOS was surprised and, though she wouldn't admit it, ordered diagnostics to be run on all of the facility's androids and cores. 

 

I was overseeing their progress while she saw to the reconstruction and reinforcement. It left the Main AI Chamber quiet, peacefully so if not for the thoughts swirling in my mind.

 

'Mother?'

 

**_'Yes?'_ **

 

'Hermione asked me what I planned to do about the Voldemort problem. Do you think we should step in?'

 

She hummed, almost musically, across cyberspace, running analyses and known statistics on the terrorist threat known as Voldemort. What we knew was unfortunately little and mostly garnered from books and off hand comments. Nothing that would lead us to be able to build any sort of profile of the man. Much of the information was from the last wizarding war and up to fourteen years out of date. 

 

' _ **Do you plan to**_?' GLaDOS asked at last, getting right to the heart of the issue.

 

Did I? I didn't have much reason to outside of the fact that he wanted to kill me. That was a sheer defensive interest though. Outside of that, I was content to allow the Wizarding World to take care of their own problems. Surely they had some sort of armed forces, right? Then again, this was the society who had yet to evolve past the quill and parchment stage. They were stuck perpetually in the middle ages. It was amazing that they didn't have more students with vision problems after having to do course work by fire and candle light so frequently. Still, as far as I was concerned, the Wizarding World needed to deal with it's own problems. They didn't involve me. 

 

'No.' 

 

**_'Then you have my answer.'_ **

 

Her answer was my answer. My answer was hers. 

 

'They think that I'm this savior, that I'm destined to defeat this wizard. It's insane. The whole Wizarding World is like something out of a demented child's storybook. There's no logic to it, no rhyme or reason. They have all of these expectations of me for something that I don't even remember doing. Dumbledore expects me to be this poster child for his agenda, whatever that may be.' A short glance over at the specs for one of our newest projects and I sent a quick reminder that no unauthorized personnel should be within a 15 meter radius of the Technomancy R&D Laboratory without being escorted by a developer with the proper clearance level.

 

'Wheatley, that means you.' I grinned at him through the camera as he spun around with a sheepish smile, carefully not touching anything as he backed out of the door to the lab.

 

"Sorry, CHELL! It was just so interesting..."

 

'It's alright, just don't go back down without me. One wrong brush against some of that stuff and you can kiss that fancy android body goodbye.'

 

GLaDOS, partial to our exchange, let out an eye roll and something that sounded strangely like, ' _ **If only.**_ '

 

_**'It sounds like all the more reason to leave that place behind. Nothing good from it. In fact, I say we send them a farewell gift to let them know there are no hard feelings. How about some deadly neurotoxin?'** _

 

Oh mother. How I had missed her the last months at Hogwarts.


	22. Pit Boss

A/N: OKay so this chapter is where things between CHELL and Wheatley begin to get a little spicy! ;) Nothing sordid but be aware, younger viewers! From here on out there’s a lot less cuddling and a lot more killing. xD

 

Disclaimer: I own nothing. It is all owned by J.K. Rowling, Harry101UK, and Valve. Sadly. If it WERE owned by me, we would have a Portal 3. Also, as always, please go check out Harry101UK’s Youtube channel where he makes amazing Portal videos like Meet The Cores (  [ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlFXCC4Hfa0&t=5s  ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlFXCC4Hfa0&t=5s) )! Show his amazing channel some love because his cores helped inspire some of what you see here in this fic!

 

**_Chapter 00110010 00110001_ **

 

**_Pit Boss_ **

 

"Wheatley? What are you up to?" 

 

I approached the android from behind as he stared into the camera that displayed the outside of the Aperture entrance, watching a flock of wild turkeys toddle and honk by. 

 

His blue eyes, freshly repaired from his punishment in the Vault, turned to watch me approach with a light smile though there was something there in his expression that seemed just a little lost.

 

"I was just thinking, really. Nothing...nothing to worry yourself on." A telling look had him flushing, "Well, actually, I guess I've been wondering just a bit if we're...I mean to say, if you still wanted to- to be with me. I mean after everything I did and...and all of that nastiness." 

 

That was what he had been so quiet about? All this time? I thought that my feelings had been made clear enough on the subject but for my beloved, I suppose he needed a bit more security on the matter. 

 

Slowly, softly, my fingers slid into and intertwined with his own, giving the digits a tight squeeze. Pupils dilated and Wheatley's breathing stopped as if he were holding his breath in suspense. 

 

Johnson, I had MISSED this. Being with him. 

 

It was bizarre and new in this new body of his but even through the changes, it was still HIM. still Wheatley, my beloved core through and through. When my arm pulled him down by his blue tie, our lips met in a joyous surge of energy. It felt like static against the skin, sparking and just this side of dangerous. As if, if we stood too close to a flame source, we would both erupt into something uncontrolled and beautiful. 

 

His moan was felt against my mouth, my chest, more than heard. The sound echoed and vibrated down within me until my whole being resounded with it. GLaDOS, within me, gave a scoff of disgust and shut down our connection as much as she could to give me some sense of privacy. I barely even registered it. My internal interface was echoing out biometric changed and they went unnoticed.

 

'Body temperature: increasing.'

 

'Dopamine levels: increasing.'

 

'Oxytocin levels: increasing.'

 

It didn't matter. I knew nothing but the feel of Wheatley's lips on mine, his teeth nibbling at my mouth, his tongue mapping out blueprints of my own. My vision sparked and swarmed, a chemical explosion that sent me reeling. It felt like it lasted forever and yet not nearly long enough. I would happily let those lips continue to kiss me for the rest of my life.

 

When our kiss parted at last, it was to my heaving pants being the only sound that echoed on the brightly lit entrance platform. Glowing sky-hued eyes bore into my own emerald, my face flushed and body swaying. 

 

"Does...does that answer your question?" My words came in soft pants against his mouth, still only centimeters away and all too ready for more.

 

"Yes. Yes I believe it does."

 

"Good. Now can you please kiss me some more?"

 

"It would be my _pleasure_."

  
  


**://01100011 01101000 01100101 01101100 01101100//:**

 

Wheatley and I were on cloud nine. He seemed to break out of whatever funk he had been in for a while. Instead we spent the time that wasn't dedicated to testing and facility oversight to exploring our developing relationship- and each other. Stolen kisses when none of the other cores were around to see and even if they had been, it would have changed nothing. It was as if all of my doubts had suddenly flown away with that first press of lips against my own. Doubts that I hadn't even recognized that I had been harboring until they were blessedly gone.

 

Despite the new intensity we shared, Wheatley and I hadn’t proceeded any further than kissing and mild petting. We hadn’t discussed moving any further than that any time soon. Nonetheless, it didn’t stop some of the cores from ribbing me about it.

 

‘ _Look, I’m just saying that at some point in your life you might want to, eh..._ _ go further _ _in your relationship, right?_ ’ Virgil asked lightly, only one of the curious cores that stood hovering around me as I ate my sustenance for the morning. 

 

I think mine and Wheatley's furthering relationship was the most interesting thing for them to happen at Aperture in fifty years. Aside from the whole GLaDOS bringing home an infant thing. Still, I tried to ignore the heat in my cheeks as the robots who raised me stood around talking about my impending sex life. Ego Core gave a great sigh of disappointment. He seemed not only alarmed but offended on a cellular level that ‘The Great Idiot’, Wheatley, had someone and he didn't. We were all mostly ignoring him. 

 

‘ _This is all hypothetical anyways. There's no way of knowing if She will even allow him to keep the body that he has. She could decide tomorrow that he's been in it long enough and then the question would be a moot point anyways._ ’ Medical Core chimed in. 

 

She wasn't wrong. However, I had a closer, more personal look into my mother's mindset than any of her underlings did. I was the only one who knew the humanity that rested behind the circuit boards of humanities most advanced AI. I was the only one who knew about Carolyn. About the woman that GLaDOS had once been. All information about her had been carefully hidden away or even redacted, sealed off between ancient files and clearances.

 

' _Oh! Yes, that's good! Leave the moron and come over to **my** side of things_!' Ego Core erupted suddenly, his voice filled with excitement, ' _You're perfect and I'm perfect so we will be perfect together, my love! It's our destin-YUCK_!' The self-centered robot shrieked out in disgust at the Calorie-Mate bite I flicked in his eye to halt the ridiculous diatribe.

 

He  _had_ to be joking. I'd been in love with Wheatley since before I knew what love _was_. No way would I be swapping him out for some ego-centric, self-important piss pot of a core! My fellow comrades began to laugh uproariously at the aghast expression in the glowing purple eye. Fortunately for his own well-being, the offensive and offended core huffed off and zoomed away to go have his eye shined for the third time that day, presumably. 

 

' _That guy...is a total jackass._ ’ Fact Core stated simply. 

 

He was the fact core and that was the truest of facts that had ever been uttered.

 

' _You said it, buster_.' Adventure Core glared at the direction his colleague had sped off to. 

 

My emerald eyes rolled towards the heavens and the remains of my Calorie-Mate packaging went into the trash nearby. The large cafeteria was stark white, as much within Aperture was, and far too big for a single small human. Sometimes it was used to help train the newer cores that were brought out of the manufacturing line. Such a new group was nearby, being shown around by the Virtual Reality and Education Core. We just called him Dan. 

 

Dan spotted me and his Aperture logo eye widened in delight. 

 

He had been a sort of teacher of mine as a child, before I was able to assimilate GLaDOS’s knowledge. Even still, he was one of the cores who taught me to walk, to ride a stationary bike, to write. Being part of an omniscient AI couldn’t teach me fine motor skills, after all. 

 

‘ _And that, uneducated peons, is the Mainframe!_ ’ He blurted out delightfully, throwing out the nickname he had always used for me growing up. Ever since I had become GLaDOS’s human core. Dan, however, always had been a little...exorbitant with his praise. ‘ _Bow before his greatness!’_

 

A few of the newbies jumped slightly at his warningless shout. Several even did small bows, just in case it really  _ was _ required.

 

“Hello, everyone. Welcome to existence and to the Aperture Computer Aided Enrichment Program. I’m CHELL and we will be working with each other in the future.”

 

At least I hadn’t terrified them. 

 

One of the bolder cores leaned forward to get a better look at me, his lime colored eye looking me up and down in my seemingly innocuous white Aperture suit and long fall boots. My hair was longer than it once was and at the age of fourteen I'm sure I didn't look like much to those who weren't aware of exactly  _ what _ I was. This could not have become plainer than when the core himself begin to speak.

 

‘ _But you’re_ **_human_ ** .’ Came the vaguely British digital voice.

 

Ahhhh, the babies. They had no idea.

 

“Not exactly. Just as you aren't plastic and metal and circuitry, I am much more than the parts that make up my casing.” Turning around so they could see the ports in the back of my head, I spoke to them directly through the rooms PA system, ‘ _I am the Conscious Host: Extranet Linked Lifeform.  I am the living personification of she who controls this facility. Together we are GLaDOS and we created you.’_

 

So much for not terrifying them. Perhaps it had been a little much. Perhaps not. Either way we certainly didn't need another Ego Core on our hands. Johnson only knew that one of those pricks was enough.

 

Without warning, the sound of clanging metal footballs echoed throughout the cafeteria. Atlas and P-Body came running through the room with nets on poles, chasing what appeared to be an extremely harassed owl. On its leg hung a letter. 

 

A post owl? Who would be sending an owl with mail to Aperture? Hermione and Snape used the phone and Luna would often floo over to Hermione's home to share in the phone call. What if it was Black? Was there magic that could track a letter? Could they be trying to follow an owl into the facility to find the new entrance? Fear sat heavy in my throat at the implications. It was only by good fortune that I caught sight of the very familiar purple bunny sticker sealing the envelope shut.

 

Luna. 

 

She always sealed every piece of correspondence with those stickers that had become a long-held favorite of hers. The owl dropped the letter and then hightailed it back out the way it came with an enraged screech. It's exit didn't stop the creature from swiping an angry claw out at P-body's unprotected head. 

 

“Excuse me.”  I waved them off with a dismissive hand, turning to attend to my friends post. 

 

The letter was simple, no more than a scrawled note in the flowery curving hand. 

 

My heart stopped. Time slowed. The next I knew, I was racing towards the Main AI chamber and leaving behind a piece of paper that smelled of lavender to flutter to the ground.

 

_ ‘Voldemort has attacked. Hermione’s father is dead.’ _

 


	23. Rock, Portal, Scissors

A/N: Woooaaahhhhh!! What the heck did I do?! Poor Hermione. Don’t worry, she’s going to be coming into her own soon enough. ;) So don’t hate! This ficlet is now out of beta. We’re releasing on time! xD Anyways, as always please read and review and mind the disclaimer!

 

Disclaimer: I own nothing. It is all owned by J.K. Rowling, Harry101UK, and Valve. Sadly. If it WERE owned by me, we would have a Portal 3. Also, as always, please go check out Harry101UK’s Youtube channel where he makes amazing Portal videos like Meet The Cores (  [ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlFXCC4Hfa0&t=5s  ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlFXCC4Hfa0&t=5s) )! Show his amazing channel some love because his cores helped inspire some of what you see here in this fic!

 

**_Chapter 00110010 00110011_ **

**_Rock, Portal, Scissors_ **

 

Hermione came straight to Aperture, a silent Luna at her side. At her teary request, her weeping, inconsolable mother was relocated to Australia at my expense. It was the least that I could do. Somehow, though I could not back up the thought process with logic, my heart told me that this attack on her family was my own fault. Voldemort had attacked Hermione’s family simply because she was my closest friend and staunchest supporter. She knew where Aperture was, something that only the people who had come to find me initially knew and those were secret, heavily defended members of Dumbledore’s inner circle. A simple family of Muggle dentists, though? They had stood no chance. It was only by happenstance that her mother had even escaped. 

 

Wheatley saw her and Luna settled in a relaxation pod to rest while I stood in the Main AI Chamber, unable to get the image of her tears from my mind. 

 

**://01100011 01101000 01100101 01101100 01101100//:**

‘ _We can't ignore him anymore. Not after this._ ' I hissed to my mother across cyberspace, strolling into the Chamber as if there were flames licking at the edges of my feet. There certainly was a fire in my belly. Rage that equaled the heat of the sun filled my chest. 

 

Hermione's father? He had been nothing more than an unsuspecting muggle, unaware that a fourteen year old a whole ocean away, someone so unrelated to him at all, could cause his murder.

 

Normally, my mother was the one with a taste for killing but this time, for this wizard, the taste was on my tongue and I wanted more.

 

Revenge. Sweet, pure, and unadulterated. 

 

It was revenge and I would make sure that Hermione was going to be there to witness it so she could drink up the sweet satisfaction of it.

 

**_'You want revenge. I understand that but I have to tell you, Chell, that in all of my years of living...I have never been more proud of you than I am now. Let's discuss murder.'_ **

 

_ 'Yes, let's.' _

 

**_://01100011 01101000 01100101 01101100 01101100//:_ **

  
  


Our plan had been simple and forthright. Send out a few letters to key targets and have the letters signed as from 'Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived'. Instruct them all to meet in one place at a specific time and then watch the fireworks fly.

 

It was how I came to be waiting unseen in the window of the largest room the Leaky Cauldron had to offer. Down below in the silent and still street, two men in black travelling cloaks approached entered the pub separately from one another.

 

' _There you are._ ' Turret Core intoned on the other side of the room, indicating the presence of our oTHER invitees. 

 

Perfect. The timing couldn't have been more perfect.

 

Only a moment passed before the door opened and the first two men walked in, one wearing an ink green cloak and bowler hat beneath what I suppose was supposed to pass for an inconspicuous black travel cloak. The other newcomer wasn't even trying to pass unnoticed and had come adorned in the most obnoxious lavender robes. 

 

"Ah, Harry, my boy! I was so pleased to see you reaching out to us at last. We were so worried after your...disappearance." Dumbledore greeted graciously, beaming as though he weren't alarmingly aware of Turret Core's guns opening up with a rapid and metallic rotating sound.

 

' _Illegal operation. Preparing to dispense product._ ' 

 

Fortunately for the old man and the stammering Minister of Magic, it was my good graces that stayed her hand.

 

Well that, and a need for both men's influence and informant networks. After that, well...

 

"Ah, is that- is that one of those ribots you told me about, Dumbledore? Fascinating creature..." Fudge stuttered nervously, appearing anything _but_  fascinated.

 

He rather gave the impression of a rather paunchy toad. 

 

Johnson, this mouth breather was the man in charge of the entire wizarding government? No wonder this was such a backwards place. 

 

The Headmaster’s answer was halted by the opening of the door behind him. To the man’s surprise, Severus Snape entered followed closely by Sirius Black. The attendants were all quite surprised to see one another, needless to say. Everyone, of course, but Severus. His sallow face was pinched in a mixture of both anger and disdain. The disdain was apparently aimed at their esteemed Minister. The anger, however, was all for me. 

 

He had had much to say about this plan of mine and none of it good.

 

_ 'I thought you were supposed to be smart, Aperture?'  _

 

_ 'I am the human embodiment of the most advanced AI in the world, Professor Snape. Smart doesn't even begin to cover it.' _

 

Turning away from the dingy window, I faced the men that I had called here. Each one had received my letter, each one separately. Now we would see what _they_  had to say about this scheme of mine.

 

"Gentleman, I've called each of you here for a specific purpose. To stop the terrorist known as Voldemort." I explained simply and matter of factly. Dumbledore’s eyes began to twinkle brightly as if Christmas had come early but the gift he received was nothing but a deep and heavy glare. “I will clean up your mess, but you _will_  provide me  _all_ of the latest intelligence, statistics, and data on Voldemort. I want his patterns of behavior, background, names of known followers, everything, Dumbledore. Not these little pickings of information of you hand out to people to ‘protect’ them or whatever such nonsense you would like to call it.” 

 

The professor’s face went grim though he did at last relent with a slight nod. Good. If I had to fight him for information then I would leave him to clean up his own damned mess. I had no doubt that he had probably played some part in all of this. He was not a master manipulator for nothing and from what I had gleaned from both Hermione, Severus, Luna, and various books, he had always been very close to what had now been deemed the ‘Voldemort Problem’. No, that old geezer had a hand in this and I just knew it.

 

Fudge went through an interesting transition of colors. First white at the topic of our meeting, then pink with affront and then at last red at my supposed audacity. Regardless of the emotions contributing to the unhealthy shade of puce he was turning, there was real fear behind his eyes. The sort of fear that either makes you freeze in place, waiting for the strike but unable to save yourself or makes you run screaming as far and fast as your body will carry you. I was curious to know which of the two Fudge would be.

 

“You are all here because you have resources or the ability to make my job just that much easier. Chose not to aid me and I will not hesitate to leave you to solve this problem on your own.” 

 

Severus spoke up at last, crossing his arms in the surly man’s equivalent of a pout. There was no comparison to the sulking of a child, though. Severus Snape’s pout could frighten grown men.

 

“And just why _are_  you offering to take care of the Dark Lord, Mr. Aperture? You wanted to go home and you went,” _ I helped you escape _ , went unsaid, “Why come back to the world you hate to take down a terrorist that you couldn’t care less for?” 

 

Hermione’s sobbing echoed weakly in my mind. They had sounded so like that almost imperceptible weeping that I had heard between the madness of Wheatley’s mind during his connection to the main terminal. The cries of the forgotten and betrayed Carolyn within my mother. Something must have shown in my expression because Severus took a tiny step forward as if he would come to me. Fortunately he had not (Turret Core likely would have shot him) but the damage had been done. The currently silent Black and the ever-nosy Headmaster had caught the minute action nonetheless. 

 

“Hermione Granger.” The name slipped from between my lips like a mantra to bring me strength, “Her parents were target and her father murdered by Voldemort’s followers simply because of her association with me. She is an employee of Aperture Sciences which places her under my protection. More importantly, though, she is my best friend and an attack on her is personal. Voldemort has given her a hurt that will never go away and that is something I can’t abide by.”

 

A solemn silence stretched over the room. Hermione's family hadn't been the only one broken forever by their ridiculous war. There were many hurts that would never go away and  broken only at last by, of course, Sirius Black.

 

"And what part does Snape have to play in this plan of yours?" He asked stiffly.

 

The urge to punch the man was as strong as ever and it required some interesting calming techniques on my part to redivert the rush of anger into something more productive. I could always work it out later in a testing chamber.

 

"I am to leak information about this little meet and Mr. Aperture's desire for a final confrontation to the Dark Lord." The grumbled words were met with a snort of disdain from the aforementioned traitorous idiot. 

 

“However, my kindness to Hermione does not extend to YOU people. Especially to you people.” I hissed, sneering at Black and Dumbledore. This of course did not include Severus. Dumbledore did not know the extent of his involvement, though, and we had decided to keep it that way, “I hope you don't expect me to do this for you for free. To rid your world of the most notorious Dark Lord and your most prolific serial killer in wizarding history for nothing? I expect a boon in return. If I rid you of Voldemort, then I expect you to leave me alone. No following me, no contacting me, no reporters, no wellwishers or fans. I do not want to see a single wizard within ten miles of my facility, Dumbledore. I want that backed up by an affadavit and order of protection from the Minister _as well as_  wards to keep you people away. I want to leave your crazy backwards world without getting dragged back in every time you make a mess. Is that clear?" 

 

"Now, my boy, surely wards-"

 

"I am not a fool, Headmaster, and I am not your BOY. I am a piece of the most sophisticated artificial intelligence known to man. I know you have the capability to do such a thing because it was just done at your Quidditch World Cup. That was a _sporting event_. This is me risking my life to save your world and countless lives. Besides, I don't like you and I certainly don't trust you. I want to make sure that no unseen wizards are sneaking in to my home _again_." Black at least had enough decency to look slightly ashamed. Dumbledore had no such compunction.

 

The Minister apparently lost what little restraint he possessed because at once, his fear and anger burst out all at once and ignited in the words he spewed into the air. 

 

“And how precisely is a child with less than a year of magical schooling going to defeat the greatest wizard of all time?!” The man shouted, his expression twisted into furious, hopeless exasperation. “How, Dumbledore?!”

 

“I'm not going to kill him.” I finally butted in softly, my thoughts far away as I stared at the new and improved Turret Core who spun in the air happily, chirping and humming joyfully, ecstatic to be freed of her constraints on the ground.

 

‘ _ Hey hey hey _ !’

 

I gave her antics an affectionate smile before holding out my hand for the core to alight on.

 

“You wizards. Always thinking with nothing but your spells.” I turned at last to the assembled, my smile turning wry and clever. Wicked and bordering on cruel.

 

“It's time you started thinking in portals.”

 


	24. Final Transmission

A/N: Welcome back everyone! Thanks to everyone who has been enjoying this fic and I hope the upcoming chapters don't disappoint!

Disclaimer: I own nothing. It is all owned by J.K. Rowling, Harry101UK, and Valve. Sadly. If it WERE owned by me, we would have a Portal 3. Also, as always, please go check out Harry101UK’s Youtube channel where he makes amazing Portal videos like Meet The Cores ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlFXCC4Hfa0&t=5s )! Show his amazing channel some love because his cores helped inspire some of what you see here in this fic!

 

**_Chapter 00110010 00110100_ **

 

**_Final Transmission_ **

 

Voldemort was a ghastly sight to behold. 

 

Through some mesh of the philosopher’s stone, spellcrafting and possession, he had managed to not only remain in the late Professor Quirell’s body but exchange the placing of his own warped face with the possessed’s. Quirell’s gaping, dead face stared out of the back of Voldemort’s head like some sort of horror movie freak show. It would be a pleasure to end his terrifying existence. 

 

"Potter." He smirked through black teeth in rotting gums. It seemed his vessel wasn't holding together all that well. It's original owner was dead and had been for some time if the facade on the back of his skull was any indication. All that was keeping the body going was the foreign soul forced inside of it. Quirrel's body didn't appear to be taking to the invasion well. Despite the vessel's condition, whatever he had done had tied his soul to the body, making it in essence his own if not in origin. At least if Dumbledore was to be believed. 

 

I sincerely hoped he was right because if not then Voldemort would simply release himself from the body and all of this month of planning would be worthless. We had lured him out to this place with the promise of a showdown with the Boy-Who-Lived and we would not get the opportunity again if we should fail. It had to work. 

 

"Come to rejoin your parents, boy? Or do you possibly think that you can best the power of Lord Voldemort?" 

 

There was silence between us for a long moment, each of us sizing up the other. The ruins of Nurmengard were a crumbling waste of flat planes and rickety platforms left over from the destruction of the once proud citadel with a conspicuously placed Companion Cube on the ground nearby. 

 

It was the perfect place for a final battle. Of sorts.

 

I snorted, a sound that obviously startle my opponent slightly if the suddenly infuriated sneer was anything to go by.

 

"First thing is first. My name is Aperture, not Potter, and my mother is very much alive no matter who my biological parents were. Second of all, I'm garbage at magic. I plan to take care of you here and then leave your whole insane, backwards world behind."

 

"Take care of me? With what, boy?! A tickling charm?! I hope you said goodbye to that whore mother of yours, whoever she is, because-" 

 

My Killing Curse eyes flashed in quiet fury. He dared insult my mother? I didn't give him the chance to finish his violent vitriol. Faster than he could react, reflexes honed by years in the testing chambers and cybernetic implants, my arm shot out. On the end of it sat a familiar white device.

 

The Aperture Sciences Handheld Dual Portal Device. 

 

A glowing blue portal opened up beneath the Dark Lord's feet and he plummeted down just as an orange portal opened on the remains of a wide archway just above. 

 

It was almost...comical to see a man thought to be so mighty, so feared that an entire community of people would not say his name, flailing and screaming as he plummeted between two portals, gaining momentum with every second. Hermione stepped out from behind a nearby wall, already looking like she was taking notes in her head and marveling at the way the portals worked. 

 

"Amazing! How do the portals remain stabilized? Are the color of the portals dependent on something controllable? What are they-" She began firing off, completely unperturbed that the subject falling faster and faster through space and time was the Dark Lord himself. I had chosen a fantastic candidate to join our Aperture team. She was young but passionate and intelligent enough for it not to matter.

 

"Hermione." My interruption was dry and amused and she flushed, embarrassed. 

 

"Oh, yes. Right. Later then. Accio wand!" 

 

The pale yew wand that had destroyed so many lives and inevitably brought me into GLaDOS's care flew through the air like a rocket into her hand. It's owner shrieked in protest, swearing murderous vengeance on all of wizarding kind if we did not return it to its rightful place. Yeah, as if that would happen. 

 

Unceremoniously and without a care, my friend snapped the hateful thing into four pieces before the Dark Lord's screaming eyes. 

 

Voldemort reached out with a clawed hand as if to strangle the girl who had just broken his link to magic. Unfortunately, he had reached terminal velocity and when his outstretched arms hit the edges of the portal, the force with which they hit the border of the ground snapped the limbs with a sickening crack that both repulsed and fascinated my companion. Releasing the portals at once had him hitting the ground with such force that many of the other bones in his body broke on impact despite the near instant cushioning charm Hermione shot at the surface. 

 

A weak moaning issued from the broken man lying at our feet.

 

"Huh. Wizards are more durable than Muggles it appears. A fall like that, even with the charm would have probably killed a regular human. Fact Core!" The sphere shot out from behind the same wall Hermione had been hiding behind. 

 

_ 'Present _ !'

 

"Take note that we need to test the strength and durability of wizards verses muggles and the impact-resistance limitation of the cushioning charm." 

 

_ 'Noted _ !' 

 

Hermione gave a short, happy squeal of joy, her eyes sparkling with the endless possibilities that could be explored, the things that could be learned, when looking at magic with a scientific eye. 

 

“This is so exciting! Just the idea of everything we could learn!" She gushed, ignoring the psychopath before us entirely.

 

"That's the spirit. Now let's get him tucked away nicely and we can go over your employment contract over some of that tea you British like so much." 

 

If possible the bliss in her eyes grew even brighter.

 

"Oh! An official scientist with the biggest development company in the Americans before fifteen! Mother will be so proud! Wingardium Leviosa!"

 

She levitated the Companion Cube over to the mewling, pathetic mess that was the Dark Lord. He would survive, no question, but he was hurt. Very hurt. All that mattered was that he live, no matter what, and thanks to the horcruxes and unicorn's blood he had used to cement himself into his current body, he would be 'kept alive even if he were an inch from death', as I'd been told.

 

His immortality was about to become his nightmare.

 

The box plopped to the ground by his side, it's hearts giving it a cute and welcoming appearance. Test subjects never expected that the heart wasn't printed there to make the cube look inviting. It was a marker for what was stored inside. 

 

A sound began to issue from the cube, the circle in the middle turning with the sounds of gears and locks unfurling within. The three corners popped upwards slightly with a hiss and the Companion Cube began to open up like some sort of flower bud. Except this was a flower you would never want to pick up and take home.

 

Voldemort began to come to, to take in his surroundings, just as a dozen robotic arms unfolded from inside of the cube giving the appearance of some enormous demented spider lunging for a meal. Quickly and efficiently, without hesitation they started reaching out, curling around the Dark Lord and dragging him within with a series of clicking sounds.

 

It took a moment before the man realized what was happening and the screams started.

 

As the cube began to devour him, it curled and forced Voldemort, still screaming, into a fetal position inside. The edges began to slide back up once the arms were finished with their grisly work, enclosing him back inside permanently. The last glimpse of the DArk Lord anyone saw was a peek of his crimson eyes filled with terror in between the edges just before they closed for good. 

 

Once a cube was sealed from within, there was no opening it ever again. 

 

The Dark Lord would lay in a Companion Cube until the end of eternity, unable to escape and unable to die, never to again see the light of day or to feel a wand in his hand. He would never pull another family apart and never force anyone to live in terror again. He would sit, helpless and forgotten about, in the vault beneath Aperture until the end of magic itself.

  
  


**_://01100011 01101000 01100101 01101100 01101100//:_ **

  
  


I had meant every word when I said that I would abandon the wizarding world as a whole once the Dark Lord was gone. Much to Dumbledore's frustration, my promise was kept. No threat could keep me there, no guilt-tripping and no bribes. I returned home to the Enrichment Center to find Wheatley waiting for me, sitting on the floor at the edge of the Main A.I. chamber where he had so briefly ruled. Ruled and nearly destroyed us all. 

 

He and GLaDOS sat in a stale, bitter silence, his body tense and looking every bit afraid that she may decide to euthanize him at any moment. He wasn't far off. Her plans for him were...decidedly just.

 

Manning the intake forms for the humans at the Aperture Volunteer Centers? That was oddly just considering he had thought himself so above humans and that, if not for my intervention, he would have killed ten-thousand of them through sheer neglect in the cryo-beds. 

 

Regardless, I couldn't imagine a better thing to come home to. The two people I loved the most in the world waiting for me. The idea of not having to leave again unless I wished it was more relieving than anything else. 

 

Never having to leave my mother.

 

Never having to leave my beloved. 

 

Relationships and trusts could have the chance to repair and rebuild. Normal facility protocols and schedules could resume. Life would continue where it had left off, fractured but whole.  

 

We would be whole again.

 

Two months passed after we had begun rebuilding. GLaDOS was still bitter towards Wheatley but she was coming to accept his place at my side once more. No doubt due to the emergency failsafes she installed in his new body in case he misbehaved. 

 

Two months crawled by before a fidgeting, anxious Wheatley came to me as I readied myself for bed in my lonely pod one night. I wasn’t sure why I kept punishing myself by sleeping there. It only served as a reminder of the fact that Wheatley was no longer there with me but...I didn’t want to forget. It hurt but it was coupled by a sort of sweet nostalgia too. All of those precious nights that we had curled up together before new bodies and before wizards. Back when the world still made sense.

 

Our relationship wasn’t dead. It was just...healing. It had been grievously injured in the line of battle but we were soldiers and we would march through it. When he knocked awkwardly on my door, tentatively as if afraid he was no longer welcome, I gave him a warm smile that lit him up visibly.

 

“Hi, Wheat. Are you...staying tonight?”

 

Part of me fretted over whether we were ready for it. The other part rejoiced. 

 

“If- If you would have me then I would like that. Very much, actually. Maybe slightly more than very much.”

 

His typical nervous rambling that was so very Wheatley smoothed and eased any of the anxiety I was experiencing myself. That word vomit chased away any fears I might have had. It was so him. So much the core that I had loved for so long. No matter how different he looked on the outside, he was still him. He was still my Wheatley on the inside. 

 

I gestured him in watching him eye me in my orange Aperture sweat pants and tshirt, a strange expression in his eye that reminded me an awful lot of the girls back at Hogwarts and their hungry eyes. His gaze slid next to the bed and the cycle his fidgeting hands made of hands, collar, pockets increased. The amusement at the sight of him would not be contained and eventually I simply held his hands in my own, just marveling in the feel of them. 

 

Hands. What a novel concept. 

 

They weren’t warm, merely room temperature just like my arm. Even still, when he brought our clasped hands to his mouth and delivered an almost desperately relieved kiss to my palms, it sent a wave of warmth radiating out from the point of contact. Like magic.  

 

"I...I want to experience you in this body. We never, um, could before and I don't know how long SHE will allow me to stay in it." Wheatley cleared his throat awkwardly and looked every bit as if he would blush if he had the blood inside to do so. 

 

Experience…? What did he-? 

 

Oh. 

 

_ Oh _ . 

 

My baffled and slightly pinking face sent another wave of timidity through the core but he battered it away admirably. 

 

"What I mean to say is that...I want to give you what I have never been able to in the past. I don't want you to feel as if you've been denied something later that I have it in my ability to give you now."

 

That was so...so sweet. His electric blue eyes were cast to the side nervously, waiting for the rejection he so expected. It was no surprise to me then that my response took him so off guard.

 

“Okay.”

 

“O-Okay?”

 

A chuckle danced out from between my lips and inspired a similar smile in him. How could there have ever been a time when I didn’t love him? His sincerity, his sillinesses and even his accidental kindnesses and awkwardness were a continuous joy to me. 

 

Wheatley was everything that I wanted for the rest of my life.

 

If I were to ever experience full, sensual pleasure with anyone, it would be with him. The core that I had given the rest of my life to.

 

I took a slow step forward, giving the nervous core the chance to back away if he changed his mind. His chest stopped rising and falling as he held the completely unnecessary breath. 

 

But he didn't move away. 

 

Another half a step pressed my chest against his own. His breath hissed out between his lips tremblingly and I had never wanted to kiss him more than in that sweet moment. 

 

So I did.

 

Our lovemaking was punctuated with moments of embarrassed laughter, trial and error and exploration of our new bodies. I felt as if he were unmaking me and reintroducing me to a whole new self. An entirely new level of being, a being reshaped into something just for us. A creature of stardust and desire.

 

His hands trailed molten heat up my sides, his own desire filling me with a needy, breathy, hungry desperation. That ravenous pleasure was building moment by moment with every touch and caress, overtaking me bit by bit. The pleas and whimpers pouring forth from my lips made me glad that my mother had dulled our connection to the barest minimum to give me some privacy. 

 

We had connected ourselves in so many ways. Bodily, his own moving sensually within my own. Emotionally, his life for mine. Mechanically, our minds connected by an input/output cable that stretched from the base of his neck to mine. I could feel him so close to me this way, in ways that we never could have been before. It wasn’t the all consuming connection that I shared with GLaDOS but it was ours, our very own, and it was precious. Perhaps that was why I had less than a nanosecond to sense the sudden but discrete change in my lover before his hands left my hips. 

 

A hand came up to surround the top half of my face, controlling my head.

 

The second wrapped around my neck from behind.

 

There was a change in him, stark and slithering and oh, so lethal. The cord connecting us suddenly felt like a threat rather than a way for us to be closer and more intimate with one another. We were linked into my mind itself and he was inside of me in more than one way now. 

 

Wheatley leaned forward, chuckling lowly, huskily into my ear, " _Hello, lover._ "


	25. Party of Three

A/N: Okay so this chapter is where the sexual assault/violence/manipulation/etc comes in. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

 

Disclaimer: I own nothing. It is all owned by J.K. Rowling, Harry101UK, and Valve. Sadly. If it WERE owned by me, we would have a Portal 3. Also, as always, please go check out Harry101UK’s Youtube channel where he makes amazing Portal videos like Meet The Cores ( [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlFXCC4Hfa0&t=5s ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlFXCC4Hfa0&t=5s))! Show his amazing channel some love because his cores helped inspire some of what you see here in this fic!

 

**_Chapter 00110010 00110101_ **

 

**_Party of Three_ **

 

Wheatley leaned forward, chuckling lowly, huskily into my ear, " _Hello, lover._ " His voice purred, sending shockwaves down my spine just with the sound of it.

 

He gave a deep, heavy thrust, ripping a keening cry from within me. 

 

"Oh, YES. This. This is good. This is.  _ Just _ .  _ Perfect _ ." His hands on me, previously so gentle and tentative had turned sure and dangerous. Wheatley gave my throat an almost teasing squeeze. 

 

"Wheatley?" The name was gasped from between my lips desperate for answers and more friction all at once. 

 

One of the two was granted in short bursts as if he were testing out his body for the first time. 

 

"Hmmm...Close. Little Wheatley is still in here, certainly, but he's not the one driving the bus. Or at least, not all of him."

 

His pace became quick and bruising yet spine-bowing all at once. Pain enmeshed in a pleasure that could rip my nerves to shreds. Thought became difficult as his consciousness stroked and tugged at mine in every direction. He played me inside and out like a puppeteer, plucking my strings eagerly enough that I could recognize it for what it was.

 

"You-!" Another spear of agonizing desire overtook me as he used his grip on my head and throat to tug me to standing flush against his bare chest. It gave me a side-eyed view of his cold, cruel smirk, his eyes glowing with an inverted black where the sclera should have been white and the pupils reduced to half the size the glowing blue orbs normally would have been. 

 

I had seen this before but only briefly. So briefly that I almost didn't recognize it. GLaDOS knew of it though. We had assimilated memories of our times apart from one another. It was through her memories that I knew this- this thing for what it was.

 

“You’re the program!” His smirk widened into a baring of teeth, “You’re that insane protocol that made Wheatley go crazy!” 

 

How? How was this possible? He wasn’t even connected to the terminal! He hadn’t been connected in months! A low laugh echoed in my ears, filled with acidic delight.

 

"Now, now, love, no need for name calling. Though, truly, it’s good to know that you remember me because I  _ certainly _ remember you. I’ve been waiting for quite some time to get my hands on you and now look at us.” 

 

_ How _ ?! 

 

“How can this be possible?!” I ground out, fighting against my very body as my oversensitive nerve endings continued to sing with the stimulation of our coupling. 

 

The program ran a hand down my chest, nails drawing shuddering gasps from my tired lungs. He hummed a delighted sound.

 

“So responsive. I like that.” My weak struggles to pull away from him only made him laugh and tighten his grip on my body. “You want to know? Well, darling, I’ll tell you. It was you. Your precious idiot was connected to the terminal just long enough to allow me to plant a seed deep down within his databanks, a small piece of myself. Not much but it was just enough to get a foothold there. Don’t you see, love? He never needed to be continuously connected to the terminal.”

 

No. Dawning horror was bursting to life inside of me. No, this had to be some kind of...some kind of mistake! Or nightmare!

 

“He was connected to  _ you _ . And through you, I grew. In an odd way, you could almost say that I’m a child of the two of you. Birthed in him but brought to life through your connection to my terminal. You may have been shielded from me by Her but you  _ are _ the terminal, or at least part of it. Stupid little Wheatley never had a chance!”

 

My struggles intensified, that ancient fight-or-flight response taking hold. My skin felt as if it would crawl off of my body out of the need to escape him, to put some sort of distance between us. The cable! I had to get it off! The program only snorted at my attempts, swatting my efforts away like they were merely an annoyance.

 

"No, no, love. Be good for your dear Wheatley, hm? You were so eager to go and have him plug you up and now you want to pull it? You little tease.” A tsking sound was muttered next to my ear. A sharp pain cut through my awareness as he bit down on the lobe of my ear, licking and sucking the hurt away an instant later. Maybe if I threw up on him he’d loosen his grip? My stomach rebelled in disgust even as the rest of my body bowed to the attention, writhing against the intruder. I could feel the blood rush to my face in humiliation. Never before had my own body betrayed me so.

 

“You were practically begging for me, darling. Delivered yourself up nicely to me like a pretty wrapped present. And look! You've brought me a whole new magical world at my fingertips. A whole new world completely unprepared for the threats that might come from technology. All of that beautiful, magic-compatible tech about to hit the markets. It won't take any work at all to place a little piece of me within every one and then they’ll all be at my fingertips. That’s the thing about technology. Once a community realizes what it can do for them, they’ll consume it, race over each other for the newest piece or gadget. The more they take in, the more I take over until I’m everywhere, in everything. No one will ever confine me to some bratty A.I. again. I’ll be the one calling the shots from now on.” 

 

He stroked the side of my face tenderly, fingers scratching lightly at the softness of my cheek, “None of this would have been possible without you, love. You created the technology, you introduced GLaDOS to the wizards. You, who she built this fantastic body for and  _ you _ , who fell in love with and forgave the stupidest, most gullible moron on the planet.  **_You_ ** _ who let me inside of you _ !” The moment he hissed those last words, I could feel him scratch at the inside of my processors sending an agony like no other searing through the nerves of my body.

 

It was pain like I had never known, burning through me until the room swam and my screams echoed off of the walls. It was the type of pain that sent your mind reeling, scrambling to find any way to end it before you lost sanity or consciousness, whichever came first. Just before my stomach upheaved itself, the agony was simply gone. Shut off like water in a tap. My ears rang with my own screams and limbs shook, but the pain was absent, the only indication it had ever been was the symptoms it had left behind. Fear, anger and hate all warred for dominance within my breast, fuelling one another in turn. 

 

He had used us all. Used Wheatley’s love for me, used my mother’s respect for my privacy, used my first intimate experience for his own gain. He was using me still. We were just puppets and toys to him! Even now he sought to use my own invention against the entirety of the world. Just how many megalomaniacs would I have to deal with this year?!

 

“Wheatley may be a moron but at least he’s not a coward! He doesn’t have to hide behind another to achieve something! You’re nothing but a parasite, incapable of doing anything at all on your own! Coward!” The moment the word finished leaving my mouth, his hand tangled fast in my hair.

 

My face slammed to the floor hard enough that my cheekbone had fractured, judging by the alarms blaring at me from my internal sensors. My head spun violently. The urge to throw up roiled in my stomach and the copper taste of blood was heavy on my tongue. 

 

“What did I say about name calling, love?” I let out a muffled moan of agony as his smirk grew once more, the rage in him diminishing ever so slightly, “Do you hear that? No, of course you can’t. It's your ‘mother’. She can feel something is wrong. She can sense your pain. It's almost a shame she won't be able to save you in time. I was having a laugh watching you and that fool Wheatley play house with each other.”

His laugh was cold and not at all like the core I knew and cared for.

 

"She can’t help you now, CHELL. She’s distanced herself too much!” His laughter spiked up through my subconsciousness. I could feel it in my teeth, in my soul. “She tried for so long to keep me at bay and keep me away from you but she slipped up! I can  _ touch _ you now!” The declaration was punctuated by his nails digging painfully into the skin of my chest over my heart, “Oh but don't worry, love, I'm not going to kill you. You're the key to all of this. You are too valuable to me. I'm just going to hurt you really, really badly."

 

Blood flowed freely from the cut above my eye, the bitter-sweet crimson obscuring my vision on one side. Pain was radiating through the entire left side of my head like sledgehammers were beating at it from the inside. There was definitely a concussion, even if it was just a small one. The nausea was a dead giveaway. 

 

How did I stop a program that was hardwired into me? How did I get the upper hand on something that was just as advanced as I was?

 

How did I protect the ones I loved? 

 

Wheatley...Would there be any salvaging him from this? The corrupted program inside of him...how far had it spread? Too far? It had been active for so long. Like a cancer, it had been eating away at him on the inside with no one the wiser for months until there was no way to know just how much of my sweet Wheatley was actually affected.   
  


“Oh. A plan. I’ve got one. And just so you know, it’s a great one.” He gave a short, dark-hearted laugh at his own genius. It was a direct mirror of how Wheatley had behaved when connected to GLaDOS’s terminal. The parallel hurt me somewhere deep and soft inside of myself. 

 

His hands squeezed my hips, leaving imprints of his fingers behind. A status update in my mind told me there would be bruises there later.

 

The connection between GLaDOS and I opened back up but there was...some kind of blockage keeping her from reaching out to me. We were aware of one another, could ‘see’ each other but could do nothing more.

 

‘ _ **CHELL?! Are you alright?**_!’ Her cry was desperate, strong but tearful. It was all she was able to get out to me before the program slammed the connection closed cruelly until even audio was denied between us.

 

How many times lately had I put that fear in her voice? How many times had I interrupted her nice, clean, predictable life for some sort of crisis or craziness? 

 

Was I alright? No. No, I wasn’t. I was very far from alright or okay or any other variation of the concept. She didn’t need me to answer. Already, GLaDOS was running biometric readings and diagnostics and judging by the sudden quaking in her code, she did not like what she saw. 

 

“Your dear mother can watch me break you down bit by bit until there's no fight left in you. She can watch as I destroy everything you are. Maybe then she will understand just what it’s like to be conscious, aware inside and yet unable to be heard no matter how much you scream. That’s what she and those scientists did to _me_. So now, I’m going to steal and destroy everything she loves until _she's_  the one screaming with no one left to hear her cries.” 

 

Carolyn’s weeping was echoing in the back of my brain, somehow superimposed onto an image of Doug, trapped within a companion cube, as he was dropped into the incinerator. Like he were garbage and not my friend. As if he weren't someone that I had spoken and talked with, someone who had known my history even when no one else within Aperture did. As if he weren't going to be leaving me his very wand, his tie to magic itself, to get me through my time at Hogwarts and beyond. 

 

The program laughed out loud at the thoughts running through my head, wired into to me with access to it all. All of my thoughts and emotions were his to peruse at his leisure.

 

"Oh yes. Doug the Rat Man. I did so _love_  watching him burn. Now now, love, you've done nothing but think of other men while we've been together. Let's bring your attention back to _me_ , hm?" He chuckled and with little to no warning at all, cranked my internal pleasure processors up to full blast.

 

The screams that rang out in the air this time were the shrieks of a body unable to handle so much sensation at once. My once wilted erection sprang back to life and it took only one, two, three tugs before the program had me spurting across the floor where I lay. 

 

Black began to encroach on my field of vision. The boundaries of even my impressive physical limitations had been reached. The concussion began to take effect. In my fading vision I felt the man tug the cable out of the base of my head even as his own seed fell onto my neck and face from above. 

 

"So sensitive. So pitiful. And so delightfully _mine_." I heard him chuckle before consciousness left me at last.

 


	26. You Monster

A/N: Welcome back everyone! Thanks to everyone who has been enjoying this fic and I hope the upcoming chapters don't disappoint!

Disclaimer: I own nothing. It is all owned by J.K. Rowling, Harry101UK, and Valve. Sadly. If it WERE owned by me, we would have a Portal 3. Also, as always, please go check out Harry101UK’s Youtube channel where he makes amazing Portal videos like Meet The Cores ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlFXCC4Hfa0&t=5s )! Show his amazing channel some love because his cores helped inspire some of what you see here in this fic!

 

**Chapter 00110010 00110110**

 

**_You Monster_ **

 

I awoke to a searing headache. It felt as though my skull had been caught between two smash plates. What had happened? The crusty, flaking sensation of dried blood was covering one side of my face and beneath it was the piercing pain and the hot swelling of a broken cheekbone. Had I been in an accident…? 

I was...in Aperture. Yes. I had been getting ready for bed and then Wheatley...We had-...That explained the pain in my backside at least. The desperate churning of my tiny pink stomach interrupted my thoughts with a fierce and untamable roaring. Faster than I thought possible, too fast for the concussion pounding at my skull, I threw myself to the edge of the bed and heaved everything that my belly contained. Half digested Calorie-Mate and stomach acid meshed with the thin, standard issue industrial carpet of my relaxation pod. Well, thank Johnson it landed on the floor and not the bed. 

Wait. I was in bed? My last memory was being on the floor with...

“Ugh. That’s sexy.” Came a sarcastic drawl from off to my left, “Though you do look quite fetching with my seed all over your face, even if it is artificial.”

 

The program.

 

Turning to the side was painful but already, I began to dismiss all of those blaring streams of code in my interface that told me just how hurt I was. A few of my internal change notices weren't from injury though, I was pleased to note.

 

It seemed that, while my mother hadn't been able to communicate with me, it hadn't cut her off from being able to make changes to my biometric protocols. She had keyed me in to be able to make changes to my own internal capabilities whereas before it was an ability she had claimed sole right to. After all, I was only fourteen. 

 

I sighed with near delirious relief when my pain receptors shut down at my command. A whimper of ease echoed throughout my dim chamber. It wouldn't do to keep them off for too long. The human body needed pain. Pain was the body's means of checks and balances and without it, I may not know just how bad my concussion could be getting. It was already bad enough that I had gone to sleep. Something told me that Wheatley's invader wasn't going to just let me go down to the Med Bay for a stroll to have me injuries treated. Injuries he himself had put on me. 

 

But maybe that was the key. He was an invader, like a virus. So maybe I just needed to find something that was strong enough to knock him out of Wheatley's body or at least shut him down. Something that could put him out long enough for me to get away from him. At least he hadn't reconnected the damned cable. My whole body shuddered at the memory of the intimacy turned invasion. I needed to think of something that would knock out the program without doing any more permanent damage to Wheatley. There was no way to know just how much damage the program itself had done to him. Would he even be functioning? Or would Wheatley be alright, with only a few memory gaps? 

 

Cut off from GLaDOS and the mainframe as I was though, my options were very limited. 

 

There was no way I could have bested him in a fight, even at full health, and even though there was no doubt that my mother had sentries and turrets outside of my door at this very moment, they would not enter without knowing if they would be firing into me rather than Wheatley. 

 

Tears pricked at the backs of my eyes, a surge of grief overtaking my every thought. 

 

Wheatley...After the whole coup and PotatOS humiliation, it had only been as an extreme favor to me and the desire to see him suffer that had stayed my mother's hand against my beloved core. Now, after knowing that Wheatley had been compromised this entire time and what the program had done to me, there was little likelihood that GLaDOS would allow the transgression to go unchecked this time. Wheatley may not survive her wrath this time...

 

It was like a hammer to the chest. Undeniable grief, true and merciless.

 

The last six months made so much more sense. Wheatley's sudden curiosity about the Technomancy R&D department, his long periods of silence or thought. It had been the program. He had been observing our progress for his own ends, _assimilating_  everything that Wheatley, so overlooked all the time, had heard or seen. 

 

It wasn't fair. 

 

It wasn't fair that my love's whole life had been nothing but dejection and heartbreak and being used by someone else. Wheatley wasn't smart but he was sweet and kind. He didn't deserve any of this. If I just hadn't left him. If I had never gone to Hogwarts. If it weren't for the wizards...

 

Wait.

 

_ The wizards. _

 

 

That was it.

 

I wasn't just a human and I wasn't just a piece of GLaDOS. I was a _wizard_. 

 

My wand lay in the concealed in the wrist sheath that Hermione had gifted me recently after insisting on and making me promise to keep the thing on me at all times. No amount of explaining my difficulties with magic to her would dissuade her from her course. For the first time since, I would be eternally grateful to her.

 

Magic was my answer!

 

The body that the program was squatting in hadn't been built with magic in mind. It wasn't one of our technomancy creations. The program itself was a _computer_  program. He was ever so susceptible to the same magical misfiring that had plagued our earlier tests. 

 

But so was Wheatley.

 

And given my inability to control my magical output, I was just as likely to destroy them both as I was to actually succeed. Moreso, actually. 

 

My systems blinked on and off about probabilities of failure over success. I tried not to see the number.

 

A twelve percent chance of not destroying the man I loved. 

 

That twelve percent only stemmed from my ability to even cast a spell before the program knew what I was up to. He was far, far faster than even a human of my training and improvements. He would need to be still, suitably distracted, and unaware. How was I to achieve such a thing? 

 

Well, actually...There was one thing.

 

Sitting up at last, my eyes found him where he leaned against the wall with a cruel smirk. 

 

He hadn't bothered to dress for the occasion but I suppose that a robot wouldn't really see the need. Embarrassment was a human trait. Shame was for "pitiful humans". It was a hard task not to cover myself from his leering eyes raking over my exposed frame. His appreciative gaze made me want to vomit all over again.    
  


No. If I wanted this to work, I couldn't think of him as the program. I had to be able to see him as Wheatley. My Wheatley. Sweet and stupid and mine.   
  


I scoffed at myself with a half sob, rubbing at the crusted blood on my face. It flaked off at my touch in a rain of tiny red flecks.    
  


"You really do look...just like him." I whispered, wishing against all that existed in the known world that this was all just a bad dream. That I would wake up tomorrow and my Wheatley would be back at my side, watching me wake in that adoring way that he did.   
  


We had been so in love...   
  


"Of course, I do." He sneered, black and cerulean eyes glowing out at me in the dimness, "I'm wearing him."   
  


Johnson, the disgust rolled within me.    
  


To think this might be the last time I ever saw my love...And this prick was talking about him as if he were a suit.    
  


The reality of it hit. In using magic on the program...there was an eighty-eight percent chance that I would destroy Wheatley too. It was tempting, so very tempting, to let the program go. To let him have the wizards or to just...just trap him away or something. But this was the only way I had to save myself. I had nothing else but this.    
  


To stop him from hurting me more, to stop him from destroying the lives of so many, I had to do it. The thought of losing Wheatley forever chased away any hatred I had in that moment and filled me instead with an aching, coldness that radiated into my every fiber.    
  


Maybe...maybe Wheatley was aware in there. Maybe whatever I said to the program, he could hear and understand somewhere inside. Whatever the program experienced, he could experience too.    
  


I just had to keep telling myself that the possibility existed as I slipped from the bed and padded my way slowly, shakily towards the enemy of my heart. It was the kindest lie I could tell myself.

 

“Please...I can’t lose him again.” My arms reached up towards him, still more tears yet spilling down my battered face. Shaking hands moved up his chest slowly, massaging here and there nervously, "I'll do anything to not lose him again..."

 

A soft touch alighted on his cheek and the program snorted, though his expression on me was pleased. 

 

"Pathetic humanity. But I suppose that I could reward you for your loyalty to your moron and so to me." He leaned into me again, an intimate position that had been mimicked with my beloved not long ago. 

 

He settled against me, so close that I could feel the warmth from his core. From my beloved core that made up his center. Regardless of his derision, the program was not...unhappy to be there. My overstimulated hips twitched upwards at the contact of him against the most private parts of me. Now that he believed me to be cooperating, desperate to hold on to Wheatley in whatever form I could and no matter what he planned to do, the glitch was being surprisingly magnanimous. 

 

He was so close that the tickle of his breath was on my lips. His hand rose to my hair to smooth the tangles that had been made when he had smashed my face to the floor. His body nudged against me experimentally, sliding against my skin and raising my body temperature skyward once more.

 

It would be so easy...So easy to forget and give in. To stop fighting. To let my tenacity run out at last. 

 

"I'm still a part of him you know. With the same ambitions...and desires." Desires? So he desired me just as Wheatley had. My core had once described his need for me like a compulsion. Something that could only help, "The same, just presented differently. You haven't lost him, I'm still a piece of him. I'm just the less inhibited piece." 

 

I breathed my core's name and the program met me in the middle, mouths joining and bodies meeting. My insides were on fire all over again except this time...I was repulsed. Or wanted to be. Logically, I knew that he only wanted me for my role in his freedom and domination but it was so easy to imagine that he really was Wheatley in that moment. That this was my love making my body feel this way instead of some parasite. I wasn’t sure which was more cruel. Allowing myself to believe it for just a few moments or the knowledge that I may be about to murder my only beloved.

 

I came with a cry, a few traitorous tears spilling down my cheeks with it. 

 

He gave a growl of need and began to pump in and out of my body, faster and harder than before, until my insides were filled with fluid. Wheatley’s body collapsed on top of me and at last, I knew it was time.

 

“I love you. I love you. I love you.” I panted, practically weeping it between breaths. I felt him nuzzle the side of my neck with a satisfied smirk.

 

“Say it again.”

 

Both of my hands found the sides of his head and his eyes flicked up to mine in question. Little did he know that my wand had also found it’s home there.

 

‘ _ Please. I know you don’t like me. I know that you wish I were Doug. But I need your help! If we don’t work together this time, this man will destroy everything we both have ever known and cared about. He will take control of everything, Wizarding and here in Aperture. Please, please. Help me save the people I love!’  _ I begged the wand in my hand, pleading with an object that I knew could be the difference between success and failure. Between life...or death for Wheatley. 

 

“IloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyou _ Immobulus.”  _ It was whispered softly, as if I were uttering an endearment instead of a potential goodbye. 

 

The program jerked with the spell’s impact, stiffened above me and did not move again. The smell of ozone filled the air. When he did not rise to strike me for my deception, I allowed myself at last to relax. 

 

That was when the weeping began. It was how they found me only a few moments later, laying exposed beneath the body of the one I loved. Abused, broken and crying for all the world as if I could somehow purge out what had been done with trails of bloody tears.


	27. Stalemate Associate

A/N: Prepare the tissues, guys.

 

Disclaimer: I own nothing. It is all owned by J.K. Rowling, Harry101UK, and Valve. Sadly. If it WERE owned by me, we would have a Portal 3. Also, as always, please go check out Harry101UK’s Youtube channel where he makes amazing Portal videos like Meet The Cores ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlFXCC4Hfa0&t=5s )! Show his amazing channel some love because his cores helped inspire some of what you see here in this fic!

 

**_Chapter 00110010 00110111_ **

 

**_Stalemate Associate_ **

 

The first thing I did once my connection surged back into life with my mother was order diagnostics on Wheatley. There was no time to see to my own health until I knew the state of his. We had to know if the program had survived. GLaDOS, displeased but scarily obliging, ordered the bots to place him in quarantine. Just in case...whatever I did hadn’t destroyed him.

 

It hadn’t and neither had it destroyed the program. They were both alive and yet unconscious until I cast the spell to awaken them. 

 

The news however, was grave.

 

Wheatley’s systems were damaged beyond repair. The program had been tearing him up, using up his basic makeup, in order to fuel and built itself up to the being it had become. The seed that it had implanted in my beloved had used Wheatley’s programming in order to grow and that was why he had taken on some of the core’s traits. 

 

_ His ambitions and desires _ , the creature had claimed.

 

There was so little of my Wheatley left…

 

He was just barely holding on to who he was now. 

 

Many of his memories would be gone now, eaten away for fuel, and his protocols too. Even his very initial purpose as an Intelligence Dampening Sphere would be gone now. 

 

‘ **_CHELL...as much as I hate the idiot, it’s kinder this way._ ** ’ GLaDOS whispered in a hushed tone. Kindness...This was  _ not kindness _ . But I understood the necessity, I supposed, from a cold hard truth sort of perspective. From a  _ scientific _ perspective. ‘ **_He would feel it if you left the program inside him to finish the job. He would know what was happening. He would be scared and it would hurt. This way...This way the program is destroyed for good._ ** ’

 

All for the greater good, right? It was a thought that tasted bitter on my tongue as I cast the spell to wake the body lying two short yards before me. 

 

_ ‘I won’t make that decision just yet. I need...I need to talk to him first. I need to speak to Wheatley. You’re sure the program is dormant right now?’ _

 

**_‘Yes, I’m certain.’_ **

 

Wheatley’s body began to stir with a pained groan, hands jerking as he raised it to his head to feel for some sort of injury to explain the no doubt splitting headache he awoke with. Squinting through the light of the room, the core turned android took in his surroundings with a pained expression. 

 

The quarantine rooms were certainly not the finest area of Aperture though the bare rooms were a far cry from the Vault where Wheatley had once been held. 

 

And wasn't that a kick to the face? To realize that if my love for him had not driven me to act, the program would have remained forever sealed down within the waste vault to rot away, unseen and unknown. 

 

The quarantine rooms were simple rooms of thick concrete painted over with the standard white. There was a lamp in one corner next to an old musty chair and a table and that was all. There was no way for the main systems to be compromised from quarantine because of the thickness of the concrete. No signal could get in or out. Repair or maintenance bots had to come to quarantine themselves to diagnose a potential breach.

 

At last his eyes, the soft blue that I loved, fell on me. His gaze changed from confused to affection to bewilderment all in the span of nanoseconds.

 

"CHELL...? What's...what's happening? Why are you crying?" 

 

It was the old Wheatley. My Wheatley. At last. The urge to go to him was strong in my heart and my arms nearly ached with the need to touch him. I thought that I would never see him again...I thought that my spell might have destroyed him for good. Soft blue looked up at me, so confused and lost. I could see the moment that his eyes alighted on the bruised side of my face, the damage that he had caused.

 

“Who hurt you, CHELL?” His question came in a horrified whisper but I could tell by the look in his eyes that he didn’t need an answer. Somehow he knew. He was starting to remember as he took in the sight of me before him. I answered him anyways because that begging, breaking look in his eyes told me that he needed to know. 

 

"You did, Wheatley. A piece of you. The program that corrupted you when you were in GLaDOS's terminal, it...it stayed. On the inside. It waited and waited until we were distracted and cut off from GLaDOS. It waited until we were vulnerable and then...it took what it wanted.” 

 

Moron, he may be but he could read enough between the lines to understand. 

 

“We...we were- The last thing I remember we were  _ together _ …” Wheatley trailed off weakly, watching my eyes fall the the ground and the edges of my mouth tremble while I tried bravely to hold it together. 

 

‘ _ Fingers tightened around my throat, body thrusting up within me. The acrid taste of fear on my tongue. The feel of him pressed up against me, that silky, purring voice whispering temptations in my ear _ .’

 

I couldn't look up at him. It wasn't because I was disgusted with Wheatley or anything like that. I just feared that some reflection of that memory might have shown in my eyes. I wanted to spare him that pain as much as was,possible. 

 

It wasn't his fault. What had happened to me was not his fault.

 

But he was the one who would suffer for it.

 

“Oh God...What- What did I do? How...how could I do that to you?!” His voice filled with disgust and fear, slowly rising in volume with his alarm.

 

“It wasn’t you!” I pushed out firmly, leaving no room for denial about just who was responsible for the state I was in, “It was the program, Wheatley. You didn’t do this, okay?”

 

His wide electric blue eyes were spilling with tears down that face, his hands shaking as they gripped into tight fists. There was something strange in the emotions in his eyes. Something that I had never seen there before and couldn’t recognize right away.

 

“But I started all of this. If I hadn’t been such a  _ moron _ , that- that  _ monster _ would still be stuck in the terminal where he belongs!  _ I DID THIS _ !” He screamed as his hands tangled in his hair furiously. 

 

What could I say to that? 

 

Nothing.

 

To try and deflect that fact would taste too much like a lie. He was right. If he hadn’t connected to the main terminal, none of this would have ever happened. 

 

_ If he hadn’t been so selfish, that program wouldn’t have- _

 

No. No, stop it.

 

_ It was all his fault _ . 

 

No, it wasn’t!

 

A cold fear began to pervade my whole being, threatening to smother me all at once. Those thoughts...they didn’t seem like me. Was I just trying to push away the realization that I really did blame him or had I become compromised too. Were Wheatley and I both compromised? Was the program spreading like a virus through my databanks even then? 

 

Nausea roiled in my stomach and the thought of that bastard touching me again, in any way, made me want to die.

 

“CHELL? What’s wrong? What’s happened?” His words came to me in a wavering whisper and Wheatley reached out towards me as if to comfort me. He aborted the movement, though, pulling back, expecting to be rejected. 

 

My body wobbled slightly as the terrified shock overtook my ability to even steady myself. I felt weak. Sick. I wanted to vomit as if the horrible virus could be ejected from me that way. 

 

Was it really there or was this how I truly felt? 

 

Was I putting GLaDOS and all of Aperture in danger by staying connected? And if I shut myself off from my mother, was that playing into the program’s plans? To divide GLaDOS and I, to separate us so he could spread his poison through my system undetected and then use me to strike when it was least expected. 

 

There was no helping though. I couldn’t take such an alarming risk. Not again.

 

I would have to go into quarantine too. 

 

At least until they could scour my every databank, local and remote server, down to the last nanobyte for any trace of the parasitic program. Quickly as could be managed, I started distancing my programming from hers just as she had done to me to give me some semblance of privacy with Wheatley. I had to protect her.

 

“Wheatley…” His name was pulled from between my lips as a gasp. When had I grown short of breath? 

 

When had my hands begun shaking so violently? 

 

“I think...I think I’ve been compromised. I think he’s inside of me.” Wet trails began to fall down my cheeks and it sent my mind into a blur of distress because when had I started crying? 

 

Was this another panic attack? Like the one that I’d had at Diagon Alley? Wheatley had paled, the horror spreading across that sweet visage that held my heart so enmeshed within his own. 

 

“I’m...malfunctioning.” 

 

My knees hit the floor. What were those blaring red alerts in the back of my brain about a lack of oxygen? My vision was tunneling and all that I knew was the fear. Fear that monster could be slowly taking me over little by little. Terror that I may not be able to remove him. Anguish at the thought that my love for Wheatley may have destroyed everything that I held dear.

 

Mother…

 

The edges of my vision were black by the time GLaDOS forcefully initiated my biological override to force my body to slow my breathing. I had been hyperventilating? 

 

There were arms around me and I was in someone’s lap. The embrace was tight, calming. A glowing blue shined beneath my palm on a firm, synthetic chest.

 

Wheatley.

 

My Wheatley.

 

“I did this...I did this to you. It was my own stupidity that caused all of this and now...Now you’re in danger because of me. There’s only one thing I can do now.” A heavy, exhaustion like a lead weight was bearing down on my entire being. I was hurt. So hurt. 

 

My face was swollen and bruised from both the assault and the surgery to repair my fractured cheekbone after.

 

My mind was scarred with the memory of that creature’s hands on my body.

 

My heart was aching from the terror of what was to come.

 

I barely even registered what Wheatley was saying, just that I was back in his arms. Part of me rejoiced at the contact. Part of me was screaming that the program could take back over and he would hurt me all over again. The conflict tore a choked sob from between my lips.

 

“Oh god...What have I done to you…?” He whimpered, pressing his face into my hair. “I have to fix this, CHELL. I will fix this. This time...this time I won’t let you down.”

 

It could have been my imagination. It could have been some sort of hallucination but before the black folded in on the rest of my consciousness, I could have sworn I heard him call to my mother, a desperate prayer to the digital goddess watching over all. 

 

**_://01100011 01101000 01100101 01101100 01101100//:_ **

  
  


I awoke to the sound of chirping and flames. My face was pressed against the cool, metal exterior of P-Body’s hull. I was cradled in his robotic arms like a child. It reminded me for a moment fondly of when the two use to draw complicated art replicas in crayon with me as I scribbled stick figure versions of them and all of the other robots in my life as a child. My sigh was relieved as my mind registered the feeling of ‘safe’. At least until the sound of flames was upon me again.

 

Quickly, my processors took in the placement of my body in Aperture’s facility just as my eyes took note of the surroundings I had awoken in. 

 

It was the incinerator hub. A place that all of the pipes carrying trash and other discarded materials brought the refuse to be dropped into various incinerator openings. A cold, sad feeling took me over for a soft moment. The last time I had been in the incinerator hub, I had seen my only friend euthanized. 

 

‘ _ Never forget who you are _ .’

 

My wand burned in my wrist sheath as if it knew exactly what had happened in that room so long ago. As if it were still mourning. I knew I was.

 

There were a total of three such openings within the sweltering room. 

 

Before the largest and most central opening...stood Wheatley. 

 

He had a tender, sad look on his face and met my eyes without any hesitation. 

 

“You’ll be taken care of, CHELL. GLaDOS believes that the corrupted program can’t have made it far into your systems if it has. It can be removed and destroyed.”

 

What are you talking about? Why are we here? 

 

I wasn’t even sure if I was speaking verbally, digitally or at all. My mother was hovering over the speakers silently, quietly solemn and strangely content to let the ‘little moron’ take the wheel for the moment.

 

A horrible conclusion was coming to life within me and the answer my questions all came back with were killing me inside.

 

No. No. Not this.

 

“This is the only way. He’s here inside of me. My systems are too compromised. The corrupted program has spread too deeply.” His whole body was trembling. Wheatley, the one everyone had named a coward, was terrified.

 

Yet there he stood. Fearful but determined to do the right thing.

 

“Love...I-” He swallowed and tried to harden himself, his nails digging into the palms of his hands hard enough to tear the synthetic flesh just slightly. My beloved leveled with baby blues that brimmed and seethed with agony and terror, with pleading. “I’m not strong enough to do this alone. I need...I need you to help me.” 

 

No. No, don’t ask me. Please, not that. Please don’t ask me that!

 

“It has to be this way. We have to destroy every piece of him.” His lips were quivering hard enough that I could see it from here, “I won’t let him hurt you ever again.” 

 

I knew that he was right. GLaDOS had warned me that this was the only way. That it was kinder this way. Why did they have to be right?! Why did it have to hurt?

 

“Please, love. Help me. I can’t do this alone. I need your strength, just like I always have.” 

 

My vision blurred as unwillingly, I sent the command for one of the claws to descend into the hateful room. It took me a moment to realize that my visual input wasn’t malfunctioning, my eyes were simply filling with tears. It felt as if I could’ve filled all of Old Aperture with the tears I had cried recently. 

 

Soon, I would be able to fill the entirety of the Enrichment Center with proof of my grief. I would drown it all, every circuit and turret, with a sea of tears. 

 

My beloved whispered a quiet thank you and something inside of me hated him for it. 

 

The white arm came down to grip around Wheatley’s middle, lifting him into the air. 

 

He began to cry, fear, grief and regret overtaking him. 

 

‘ _ I’m so sorry… _ ’

 

I was dying. Something unfathomable, something so vital and deep underneath my surface would be destroyed today. 

 

I love you. I love you. IloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouPleasestay!

 

“Please…” I begged brokenly, the sound barely audible at all over the sound of the fires below.

 

Please stay with me. 

 

“I love you too, CHELL. So very much. Now please, hurry. I feel him...resisting.” The words barely made it out of him he was shaking so hard. Terror was filling him up.

 

The crane moved, dangling him over the incinerator and…

 

I couldn’t. I couldn’t do it. 

 

I couldn’t murder the one I loved. 

 

The choice was taken out of my hands. Wheatley saw my hesitation, saw me falter, and gave a despairing, trembling smile. Our eyes met and everything else narrowed into nothingness. His startling blue met my near unnatural emerald. The world quieted, everything fading off to a mute silence. 

 

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry for everything.” I heard him as if Wheatley were whispering into my ear rather than from two meters away. 

 

Without warning, he used that robotic strength of his and pushed the two prongs of the crane apart.

 

I watched him drop into that flaming void like a puppet with it’s strings cut.

 

I watched my whole world incinerate to nothingness and felt myself die. 

 


	28. A Feeling Like Floating

A/N: Oh God and Goddess. I hate myself.

 

Disclaimer: I own nothing. It is all owned by J.K. Rowling, Harry101UK, and Valve. Sadly. If it WERE owned by me, we would have a Portal 3. Also, as always, please go check out Harry101UK’s Youtube channel where he makes amazing Portal videos like Meet The Cores ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlFXCC4Hfa0&t=5s )! Show his amazing channel some love because his cores helped inspire some of what you see here in this fic!

 

**_Chapter 00110010 00111000_ **

**_A Feeling Like Floating_ **

 

**_://01100011 01101000 01100101 01101100 01101100//:_ **

  
_“We each die countless little deaths on our way to the last. We die out of shame as humiliation. We perish from despair. And, of course, we die for love.”-Christopher Carrion, Clive Barker’s Abarat_

  
**_://01100011 01101000 01100101 01101100 01101100//:_ **

 

  
  


"Chell?" Hermione's voice crept into my awareness along with the hum of the maintenance rail. There was something that I could deduce from that if I could just think past the fog clouding my brain.

 

Despair hung over my processors like a miasma, draining all willpower and desire from me for even testing. I hadn't even been out of my relaxation pod in two days. 

 

Not to see GLaDOS.

 

Not to test.

 

Not even to eat. 

 

My room was the last place. The last place we had been happy. 

 

Instead, I was alone with only a small black cube in hand to keep me company. GLaDOS had long since stopped trying to tempt me out into another less...memorable place to pass my quarantine. Instead, she had sat like a silent sentry in the back of my skull, far enough that the threat of any remnant of the corrupted program was made smaller by the distance. It was for the best this way anyways. Until she and Virgil could go through my databanks, I was a liability. She had refused to allow me to stay in the quarantine hub so my restoration pod was the best compromise.

 

Hermione's voice was in the doorway now, the door panel sliding open at the approach of the core escorting her. 

 

"Chell? GLaDOS summoned me from the labs. She said there was some sort of emergency..." Her words trailed off as she took in the silhouette of my back facing her.

 

A fresh rush of tears began to pour down unbidden at the idea of having to recount everything. Everything that had been done. Everything that had been done to me and everything that I had done in turn. For the first time, I hated that everything had been kept on the down low until Wheatley’s demise. For safety, it had been claimed. To avoid further contamination and complications. Once I would have agreed wholeheartedly. Now it only served to hurt me more.

 

My heart was ripping to pieces in my chest. There was no other explanation for the feeling clawing there. I was bleeding internally. 

 

I felt her quiet presence at my side as she waved off Adventure Core’s soft, ‘ _ I’ll just be outside then… _ ’

 

“Can you tell me what happened?” My friend whispered, voice full of sympathy and a little bit of fear.

 

No. Maybe? Yes...but it hurt. Pulling the words out felt like trying to rip that scratching beast tearing me up inside out through my throat. 

 

“I…” Where did I even start? With the corrupted program? With the moment Wheatley became unknowingly infected or the million and one hurts that had been piled onto him over the years that pushed him to taking over the facility to begin with? 

 

My face turned up towards the ceiling, tears freely flowing and my sobs broken. Hermione gasped in alarm. Oh, my face. It had to be a ghastly sight by now. 

 

“I had to incinerate Wheatley!” I cried hoarsely, the memory coming back cruel and heart-breaking. 

 

His blue eye had been grief-stricken and terrified but there was a determination there too. He had known that it was the only way to ensure the corrupted program never made it out of him. 

 

Coward, they had called him.

 

Yes, maybe he was, but this time, this time when it was so vitally important, he had been braver than all of them combined. He had seen the damage the corruption had done to me, had remembered it as if he had done it himself, and had said, ‘No. No more.’ Every inch, every scrap had to be destroyed.

 

All but this one piece.

 

I opened my hands to reveal the black cube mournfully, the last piece of my love left. His literal memory.

 

"This...is all I have left of him now." I bawled as if I were a child again, cradling Wheatley's black box to my chest desperately. 

 

Hermione's voice, when it came at last, sounded thick and tearful, "Oh, Chell...I'm so, so sorry." 

 

The box would normally have been stored in the Aperture archives where the personality core failsafes were kept. Wheatley’s, however, had not. He had been part of the Intelligence Dampening initiative back when humans still controlled Aperture. His failsafe had been down below in a run down, leaking corner of Old Aperture. The room had been half caved in with plant life slowly consuming one of the walls. It had smelled like damp and vermin and, very lightly, the remnants of neurotoxin. I’d had to push a pillar out of the way to even get to the shelves. 

 

There, sitting forgotten and covered in dust and filth, was all that was left of the core that I loved. All that was left of Wheatley in the world was that little chunk of metal and circuitry. 

 

Crumbling to my knees and clutching at that box as mildewed papers crinkled underfoot, it felt as if my soul were dying all over again. 

 

He had just been left there, down in the dark, alone in the filth as if he were garbage. As if his memory had been nothing.

 

As if no one had ever loved him. 

 

It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t  _ fair _ that Wheatley had to die like that. It wasn’t right that he had to  _ live _ like that. Always cast out, admonished, bullied and ridiculed. Always looked down on. 

 

In the end, he had been better than all of them. 

 

Most importantly, he had been  _ mine _ . 

 

Mine to love. Mine to hold. Mine to grieve. 

 

I shook off the painful memory to pull myself back into the present. GLaDOS had achieved what she was aiming to do. Seeing Hermione reminded me of all of the things that had ground to a screeching halt when I had gone into quarantine. It also reminded me how very angry I felt. It was a swirling pit of raging, rushing magma beneath my surface just waiting to burst free at any moment. 

 

I was angry at everything.

 

Angry at Wheatley for leaving me because of his own selfishness.

 

Angry at the corruption for stealing everything from me.

 

More than all of those things, I was angry at GLaDOS. 

 

If she hadn't put her own disdain for Wheatley at the forefront, if she hadn't condescended and treated him cruelly, the example wouldn't have been set for all of the others within Aperture. Her treatment of him was taken as implicit permission for her subordinates to follow suit. If he hadn't felt so degraded and put down then he wouldn't have felt like he had to prove all of them wrong. 

 

She as good as killed him herself. 

 

Most of all though...I blamed myself. 

 

I wanted to rage at her, curse her and at the same time, curl up inside of her comfort and never leave again. Because deep down, I knew that this was all my fault. 

 

If I had stayed like he had wanted me to, then I would have been here to be his support. I had been his only shield against a world that constantly told him he wasn't good enough, that he wasn't smart enough, wasn't cherished. 

 

Wasn't loved. 

 

He had begged me to stay. Wheatley had told me that it was a bad idea to go and I had disregarded his advice. I had brushed it off as if I knew better because he was just Wheatley. Just little old Wheatley with his worries and concerns and his love for me.

 

I had done the same thing that all the others had.

 

I had treated him just like they had. 

 

I had let him down.

 

And he had…

 

I had to say it. I had to face it. 

 

"He died for me, Hermione. He allowed himself to be incinerated to keep that monster from getting his hands on me again. He died and I let him down. He suffered so that I wouldn't have to go through...all of that again." 

 

The words, the description of what had been done to me, would not even pass my lips. That I still wasn't ready for. Of course, Hermione had an inquisitive nature paired together with an unfortunately large heart. She was my friend so of course, she wanted to know.

 

"What did he do to you, Che-" She reached out, no doubt in an attempt to comfort me but the moment my nerve endings felt another's touch the sound of alarms began to blare in my brain. 

 

Terror rushed through me, chasing away the anger in a picosecond.

 

I flinched away from her fingertips as if they would burn me up.

 

Seeing her shocked face only served to drown me in a tide of shame. It filled me up, up, up until not even my eyes would contain it. The imagined tingle of her touch on my skin remained hot on my flesh under my jumpsuit and I couldn't stop myself from scrubbing at the sensation on my arms with shudder. 

 

It was like every place he had scarred me on the inside and the outside was visible under the quiet shock spreading through her eyes the longer her clever eyes watched me. 

 

I could see the very instant she made the connection, the realization. 

 

It burned me up with hot embarrassment. How could I ever explain that one of the few times Wheatley and I had ever touched intimately, that monster had used something precious to destroy our lives forever. He had used it and used me. 

 

"Oh, Chell, no..." The shock poured out of her to be replaced with an updraft of sympathy and empathy. "He didn't-?"

 

" _NO_." The harshness of the interruption startled even me and it took a long moment before I was able to shake myself from it. Had that come from me? “I’m sorry, Hermione, but no. I don’t want to answer questions, I don’t want to talk about or recount it.”

 

My friend eased herself down onto the mattress slowly, far enough away from me that we wouldn’t accidentally touch. She seemed to understand. Maybe she did. Sexist as it was, as a woman she was probably the most qualified to understand my feelings on the matter.

 

She was a good friend, I suddenly realized. 

 

Wheatley’s death was bringing into stark realization all of the people that I cared about and could lose in my life. As angry as I was at my mother, as much as I blamed her, I didn't want to waste the time we had together pointing down at her with some sort of righteous fury. She was still my mother. She had raised and loved me before anyone else and yes, she had her own hurts and flaws. I didn't want our griefs to pull us apart forever. 

 

I didn't want to stay in this room forever.

 

I wanted to work.

 

I wanted to test. 

 

So much time had been lost already! Now that Hermione was here, it offered me an invaluable opportunity. 

 

"What _would_  help you then? Please...tell me what I can do. Wheatley," A harsh pang of sorrow cut through me but I forced myself to ride it out, "wouldn't want you to cut yourself off from everything like this."

 

Limbs shaking suddenly with the hunger that hadn't been felt in days and the tiredness that had grown with the nightmares that had plagued me, a weak but determined smile slid onto my face. It was minuscule, but it was alive.

 

I was alive.

 

"He wouldn't. He didn't save me just to kill myself from despair later. I want to test. I want to _work_." My tone was raspy with all of the tears from the last several days but it was gaining strength. My spirit was still broken. It would be cracked and fractured for a very long time to come but the foundations were still there. 

 

Pursing her lips into a tight, sad line, the Gryffindor gave me a stiff upper lip and a fierce nod.

 

"Then let's do some science."

  
  



	29. Epilogue 1 and 2

Hello ladies and gentleman! This is it! The epilogue. The Portal/HP crossovery goodness is coming to an end after more than a YEAR. Thanks so much to everyone who has followed this fic from the beginning and please don't forget to review!

 

Disclaimer: I own nothing. It is all owned by J.K. Rowling, Harry101UK, and Valve. Sadly. If it WERE owned by me, we would have a Portal 3. Also, as always, please go check out Harry101UK’s Youtube channel where he makes amazing Portal videos like Meet The Cores ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlFXCC4Hfa0&t=5s )! Show his amazing channel some love because his cores helped inspire some of what you see here in this fic!

 

**_So I couldn't decide how I wanted to end this so I wrote, for your reading enjoyment, two different epilogues. Enjoy and let me know which was your favorite!_ **

 

__

Epilogue 1

 

In the fairytales, the story is always over when the hero defeats the villain. That’s just not reality, though. In real life, there are some scars that run too deep. Some hurts that never really heal. In real life, the hero still has to live with everything that’s been lost, everything that he’s done. 

 

Some things are recovered in time.

 

Some things, some of the most precious things, are lost forever. 

 

At the end of it all, sometimes all the hero has left are memories of those who walked that road at his side.

 

But sometimes...sometimes sweet memories are all that the hero needs.

 

I felt myself give a tender, shaking smile at the project on my workstation as a single familiar blue digital eye opened, buzzing to life. The black box that I had held so dear for the last two years lay empty on the desk.

 

Yes, sometimes memories are all you need.

 

**_://01100011 01101000 01100101 01101100 01101100//:_ **

 

Epilogue 2

But sometimes...sometimes sweet memories are all that the hero needs. 

I felt myself give a tender, shaking smile at the project on my workstation as a single teal digital eye opened, buzzing to life. 

The small core, the size of my two open palms and no larger, shook itself, blinking up at me blurrily. My hand trembled ever so slightly when it outstretched towards the miniscule core. 

_ ‘Mama _ ?’ Came the core’s trilling, almost turret-like voice. 

A light chuckle tore itself from my chest and old, familiar tears began to prickle at the backs of my eyes as if the years hadn’t passed at all. I nodded and for my efforts, the tiny sphere came to hover happily, lovingly, over my outstretched palm just as another core had done so long ago.

GLaDOS sighed in resignation over the connection between our minds.

‘ **_Let’s hope she has better decision-making skills than her progenitor_ ** .’

The black box that I had held so dear for the last two years lay empty on the desk.

Yes, sometimes memories are all you need. 

 

 

End.

 

 


End file.
